St. Catharines 142 Queenston Street | 80.8m | 24s | Vive Development | R+L

[Branden Simon]

142 Queenston Street: A proposed 11, 15, 15, 16-Storey of Condo/Apartments, Five 3-Storey of townhouses and a commercial building on first floor of Condo building designed by IBI Group Architects Inc for Oakdale Queenston Development Group. There will be of 1091 Condo/Apartment and 40 townhouses units planned.

Renderings

 

[ben.thebean1]

Here's the site on Google Maps

Note that the old hospital which occupied this site was demolished in 2018-19

 

[Wigs]

I'm all for this development. Turning a site that became vacant/run down in the past decade when the new hospital (spring 2013) opened into housing for say 1,500-2000 or more residents.

Queenston St in particular needs a good refresh to say the least.

 

[Northern Light]

Site as it appears today:

Looking at the adjacent road, I immediately want to see an ROW expansion to allow for physically separated cycle tracks here:

Same view w/hospital in operation from 2009:

 

[Northern Light]

New article at Renx tells us this site has changed ownership.

Vive buys former St. Catharines hospital site for apartment dev.

Vive Development Corporation is expanding from its home base in Kitchener, Ont. into a new market with ambitious plans to redevelop the former St. Catharines General Hospital site into a high-rise purpose-built rental community.

renx.ca

New owner is Vive.

@Paclo

 

[Paclo]

Vive has now made an official submission here with a design by Reinders + Associates proposing 9 towers of 24 storeys, with a total of 2443 rental units including live/work units.

Updated Renderings & Site Plan:

 

[innsertnamehere]

LOL good luck with that in St Catharines.

 

[Towered]

This is a new low even for suburban cities like this where such utter trash gets proposed all the time.

 

[Northern Light]

Architecture appearance: Bulky, overly dense for the site, bland, too much sameness.

Massing: Needs some measure of variation, it need not be extreme, too many identical lumps.

Park: You have a vista overlooking a valley, is there a nicer place to park a viewing spot, area to eat lunch outside? Kids playground or tennis court?

Proponent should sell 25% of the site to St. Kitts as a park.

 

[mjgrhm]

This is a rough part of St. Catharines, any proposal should include a community centre and a new school. It's going to take decades to clean-up this area and there's zero chance they can sell 9 towers worth of condos here. Start small and give me tiered patios facing the green space.

 

[ZEBuilder]

This is a rough part of St. Catharines, any proposal should include a community centre and a new school. It's going to take decades to clean-up this area and there's zero chance they can sell 9 towers worth of condos here. Start small and give me tiered patios facing the green space.

Good thing Vive won't be building condos, Vive exclusively does rental, with the exception of Otis in Kitchener but that was a one off.

 

[mjgrhm]

Good thing Vive won't be building condos, Vive exclusively does rental, with the exception of Otis in Kitchener but that was a one off.

I think that's even worse. Low income rentals will just ensure this area never improves.

 

[Sauga89]

I'm not super familiar with this area of St. Catharines, but it seems like this property and the adjacent section of Oakdale Ave act as a big barrier to accessing the parkland below from Queenston St.

I wonder if St. Catharines could close and/or re-route Oakdale Ave, and then work with the developer to create a new connection to the park.

New homes, new retail, and better access to an expanded park would make a quite an impact on the area I imagine.

 

[ZEBuilder]

I'm not super familiar with this area of St. Catharines, but it seems like this property and the adjacent section of Oakdale Ave act as a big barrier to accessing the parkland below from Queenston St.

I wonder if St. Catharines could close and/or re-route Oakdale Ave, and then work with the developer to create a new connection to the park.

View attachment 685287

New homes, new retail, and better access to an expanded park would make a quite an impact on the area I imagine.

Vive would likely be open to that but they will want something in return (more height). Parkland dedication is one of their sticking points, they've taken Kitchener to the OLT over parkland dedication fees.

 

[junctionist]

If they were proposing one tower with this design, it would be bad enough. But a whole community of this stuff will be a blight on the cityscape.

They should have gone the development route of investing more into the first phase to make it more attractive (from a design, amenity and public realm perspective), to improve the area and drive up demand. Then they'd be able to enjoy the fruits of their labour with higher demand for the subsequent phases.