Waterloo Sunview Suites | ?m | 13s | Prica | PGDS
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Midtown Urbanist
Superstar
Shouldn't this thread say Waterloo rather than Toronto?
emphurent
Active Member
For my 100th post, I'm gonna do something a little different. I saw this project had a pin on the map a little while back and thought it was funny it was marked. The project has been completed for a while, and while it's nothing noteworthy, I wanted to broadly discuss the quickly evolving university district in Waterloo and how this project falls into that, and lessons we could take back to Toronto when it comes to affordability for students who are often overlooked. Please note I'm talking about the area imminently around this development, not the weird tower stroad on King. This won't be a read in which I dunk on this area of Waterloo despite its shortfalls, as there are good things that should be called out...
Here's this project complete from Google Streetview:
Immediately you'll probably notice that this project presents itself very differently from a Toronto midrise (The quality is at or below par for the course in Toronto but that's not the point i'm making). These would simply not be allowed in Toronto for many reasons, which tends to add to our housing shortfall. There are no step backs on the front or back, and they are quite tall and "out of character for the neighborhood". Even the parking is way below Toronto's minimum. Being this is a student housing midrise that's not really a concern here but notable.
One more thing of note... the liberal use of colour! Who would've thunk it was possible! May not to be to everyone's taste, but again this is student housing.
Before this and many of the other midrises of Waterloo were built here, this is what the area would've looked like as seen from Google Earth a few blocks over:
But now, quick urbanization of the land immediately around the university has allowed for many more quality housing options for students, note this project is visible on the top end of this screencap from Google Earth:
Only ten years ago this area was a rather tired student rooming house neighborhood. Believe it or not this is the same street less than eight years apart! University looking up Albert street on Google Streetview:
Before:
After:
The urban form and architecture here both on this building and overall is quite different from Toronto and often gets flack from locals, some of it is justified, but I do believe there are redeeming qualities here (especially outside of the architecture), and some noteworthy feats being achieved in the area, such as the quick densification of single family homes to feed a ballooning market. This all happened pretty efficiently with the needs and demands of the city looking for much more (in specific) student housing to cool costs. It's quite impressive that with much less bureaucracy, Waterloo has managed to keep housing prices for students in check. Sadly the same can't be said for anyone else...
So many neighborhoods that are close to transit in Toronto need this type of quite densification, not just in student type housing, but in all different forms of midrise.
The cost to students nowadays to rent these places is often far cheaper than regular housing or on campus (in part because the housing style is different) but as a student this type of housing is really missing in Toronto. My residence costs in Toronto this year were $1600 a month, meanwhile my friends over in Waterloo paid less than $600 (both of us were in new buildings with shared bathrooms and kitchens).
With all the flack Waterloo gets (more specifically these buildings), as a student the amount and cost of housing made it a tempting option to be able to get a pretty nice place for half the price I could in Toronto. Alas I still went to Toronto for the culture, and it was worth it for sure. But putting students on a shoestring budget will eventually lead to many opting for school away from Toronto, killing a portion of the vibrant culture Toronto barely clings to right now. Shared housing needs to become more common in Toronto, specifically near schools.
Continuing on... Most of this flack often comes from the hatred of the architecture, which is fair as it's all subjective. But by student housing standards which are already low, and when you have the vertical prison on College street in Toronto existing in its grey overbearing spot, it feels wrong to say these new buildings are that bad. I can agree the quality is nowhere near something pristine, in fact they aren't great quality at all pretty much across the board. Many of the red brick buildings that date from the early 2000's around the area are quite the opposite of urban and quality of life, but this new wave of buildings are somewhat playful and try different ideas with varying levels of success and that can give us lessons.
Take 228 Albert, or as I call it... the Nike building (the checkmarks on top and colour remind me of the brand so i'll roll with it) as an example: The quality certainly could've been higher for sure in many places (some of the design problems of most buildings in this area stem from the architects behind them being rather inexperienced), but in spite of it, the basket weave is quite unique and striking. It provides rentals from $600-800 (be it some with shared common areas), provides a ground floor retail unit, large ground floor townhouses, and a condensed lobby. In my mind this matches the quality of many of the recent affordable housing projects in Toronto, but still at a cheaper cost.
(Photo from Google Streetview)
Another positive note on these developments is they have slowly brought a revitalized streetlife with new retail offerings to the areas they've built up. I won't paint the retail integration as a complete success though as units still seem to stay about 30% unoccupied, but the variety of retail compared to just dentists is actually impressive. With some streetscape improvements to make the streets fit this new urban character, these places could feel a lot more integrated.
Example of Lester street retail from Google Streetview:
To close out, I want this to stand as a message that quick densification of single family homes does indeed work to aid in affordability depending on the types of units you market. To combat this housing shortfall we are in, Toronto needs to be bolder, and build more varieties of housing. This area while very imperfect acts as a great example of student housing that should be seen around many more schools in the province to aid in students affordability and allow them more freedom to go to an out of town school without high rent being a deterrent.
Here's this project complete from Google Streetview:
Immediately you'll probably notice that this project presents itself very differently from a Toronto midrise (The quality is at or below par for the course in Toronto but that's not the point i'm making). These would simply not be allowed in Toronto for many reasons, which tends to add to our housing shortfall. There are no step backs on the front or back, and they are quite tall and "out of character for the neighborhood". Even the parking is way below Toronto's minimum. Being this is a student housing midrise that's not really a concern here but notable.
One more thing of note... the liberal use of colour! Who would've thunk it was possible! May not to be to everyone's taste, but again this is student housing.
Before this and many of the other midrises of Waterloo were built here, this is what the area would've looked like as seen from Google Earth a few blocks over:
But now, quick urbanization of the land immediately around the university has allowed for many more quality housing options for students, note this project is visible on the top end of this screencap from Google Earth:
Only ten years ago this area was a rather tired student rooming house neighborhood. Believe it or not this is the same street less than eight years apart! University looking up Albert street on Google Streetview:
Before:
After:
The urban form and architecture here both on this building and overall is quite different from Toronto and often gets flack from locals, some of it is justified, but I do believe there are redeeming qualities here (especially outside of the architecture), and some noteworthy feats being achieved in the area, such as the quick densification of single family homes to feed a ballooning market. This all happened pretty efficiently with the needs and demands of the city looking for much more (in specific) student housing to cool costs. It's quite impressive that with much less bureaucracy, Waterloo has managed to keep housing prices for students in check. Sadly the same can't be said for anyone else...
So many neighborhoods that are close to transit in Toronto need this type of quite densification, not just in student type housing, but in all different forms of midrise.
The cost to students nowadays to rent these places is often far cheaper than regular housing or on campus (in part because the housing style is different) but as a student this type of housing is really missing in Toronto. My residence costs in Toronto this year were $1600 a month, meanwhile my friends over in Waterloo paid less than $600 (both of us were in new buildings with shared bathrooms and kitchens).
With all the flack Waterloo gets (more specifically these buildings), as a student the amount and cost of housing made it a tempting option to be able to get a pretty nice place for half the price I could in Toronto. Alas I still went to Toronto for the culture, and it was worth it for sure. But putting students on a shoestring budget will eventually lead to many opting for school away from Toronto, killing a portion of the vibrant culture Toronto barely clings to right now. Shared housing needs to become more common in Toronto, specifically near schools.
Continuing on... Most of this flack often comes from the hatred of the architecture, which is fair as it's all subjective. But by student housing standards which are already low, and when you have the vertical prison on College street in Toronto existing in its grey overbearing spot, it feels wrong to say these new buildings are that bad. I can agree the quality is nowhere near something pristine, in fact they aren't great quality at all pretty much across the board. Many of the red brick buildings that date from the early 2000's around the area are quite the opposite of urban and quality of life, but this new wave of buildings are somewhat playful and try different ideas with varying levels of success and that can give us lessons.
Take 228 Albert, or as I call it... the Nike building (the checkmarks on top and colour remind me of the brand so i'll roll with it) as an example: The quality certainly could've been higher for sure in many places (some of the design problems of most buildings in this area stem from the architects behind them being rather inexperienced), but in spite of it, the basket weave is quite unique and striking. It provides rentals from $600-800 (be it some with shared common areas), provides a ground floor retail unit, large ground floor townhouses, and a condensed lobby. In my mind this matches the quality of many of the recent affordable housing projects in Toronto, but still at a cheaper cost.
(Photo from Google Streetview)
Another positive note on these developments is they have slowly brought a revitalized streetlife with new retail offerings to the areas they've built up. I won't paint the retail integration as a complete success though as units still seem to stay about 30% unoccupied, but the variety of retail compared to just dentists is actually impressive. With some streetscape improvements to make the streets fit this new urban character, these places could feel a lot more integrated.
Example of Lester street retail from Google Streetview:
To close out, I want this to stand as a message that quick densification of single family homes does indeed work to aid in affordability depending on the types of units you market. To combat this housing shortfall we are in, Toronto needs to be bolder, and build more varieties of housing. This area while very imperfect acts as a great example of student housing that should be seen around many more schools in the province to aid in students affordability and allow them more freedom to go to an out of town school without high rent being a deterrent.
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UtakataNoAnnex
Senior Member
Goodness, those colours! And lot of the spandrel is being shown it's place too, despite the cheapness of the looks...
...is it the fact that Toronto doesn't know how to do value engineering when doing value engineering? And those "Design" Haus developments seem to have been lying to us all along. /sigh
...is it the fact that Toronto doesn't know how to do value engineering when doing value engineering? And those "Design" Haus developments seem to have been lying to us all along. /sigh
allengeorge
Senior Member
Damn - I used to live close to that block in one of those afore-mentioned rooming houses (an older couple had bought a large SFH, subdivided each floor into multiple units and rented each out to a student). To see this as it is today is just wild.
University Ave. is still as crappy a streetlife/pedestrian experience still, I see.
University Ave. is still as crappy a streetlife/pedestrian experience still, I see.
jamincan
Active Member
The change there is really astonishing. I don't know if a neighbourhood in Canada has ever seen such a wholesale transformation without it happening under a directed urban renewal program. It will be interesting to see how it matures over the next ten years.
AlbertC
Superstar
Yeah as someone who was around here circa 2009-2010, the changes in built form along streets like Lester, Sunview and Albert is quite incredible and almost unrecognizable compared to what it used to be. I remember back then that change was beginning to happen with a couple of those 5 storey, mutli-bedroom, off campus student housing buildings on Lester. But nothing close to the scale of the buildings there now. Most of these streets used to be just sleepy residential side streets with the typical SFH's for the area. Retail at the UW Plaza has always been in great demand, so it's great to see the new retail at the base of these buildings put in consistent use.
ash_iwn95
New Member
Came across this thread and post after discovering that waterloo buildings are now part of UT!
Great detail and pictures demonstrating the change in this entire neighbourhood and the variety of residences/retail that are popping up in this area.
As someone who joined UW in 2013, ive seen the transformation up close and it is jaw dropping how quickly the landscape changed. With regards to how all this became possible, this is all part of the Northdale neighbourhood plan undertaken by the city of waterloo to transform the relatively dry SFH neighbourhood into one with a variety of mid-rises and high rises.
From what i recall about reading about it, The arterial roads (columbia, university, king, philip) are zoned for high rises, and all the roads in between (with the exception of albert) are zoned for midrises not exceeding 6 storeys. Its going to look quite nice once the density fills out more with new developments in the next 5-10 years.
JasonBourne008
New Member
As mentioned above this project should be marked as completed (around 2019 I think)?