canarob
Senior Member
This is a HUGE project in Markham Centre next to the IBM lab.
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No thanks. It will probably be a window wall/spandrel mess. It is essentially Eau du Soleil with garlands of gorzonzola wrapped balconies; or is that feta? Definitely ain't chedda; which is betta.Wow !! This development is really using they're creative juices to draw up this kind of rendering. This project belongs on the waterfront ! Nice, Real Nice!
While the architecture looks great, I really question the appropriateness of this amount of density in this location. This part of Downtown Markham is not walkable in any real significant way - is it really appropriate to put this level of density in such an auto dependent location? I mean there is literally a left turn flyover right in front of it. It's not prime urban land.
it will, but in reality, how many people are going to use it who live in these buildings? I would be surprised if transit modal share was over 10%. Almost all recreational (shopping, etc.) trips from here will also be car based as there is very little local amenity within walking distance. You could walk into Downtown Markham if you wanted, but since parking is free, I suspect the vast majority will drive even there.It will have VIVA access right in front though on Cedarland Drive (for those unfamiliar, VIVA heading east cuts down Town Centre Boulevard, cuts across Cedarland, runs alongside Warden and then heads across Enterprise).
Agreed re: need for walkable amenities. In terms of transit though, the VIVA Bus is BRT essentially, running in protected lanes. It's this kind of density that the VIVA route needs to bump up the frequency to rider-attractive levels.1,851 parking spaces for 2,206 units in this location - wow. That's huge.
2,200 units is going to be over 4,000 people living here. That's more than 1% of Markham's population in a single complex.
I like the look of the project - but I just can't help but think that this thing is way, way too dense for this location. It's not really close to any transit other than the viva bus. At least the parking ratio is low for this location I guess.
If Markham is going to have that many people living in this location, they really need to consider how much retail and amenity is going to be within walking distance. This location right now is just high rise residential without any real retail or community amenity. With these unit counts there should be a community centre, multiple levels of retail, etc. to service all of these residents without them getting in their cars.
I just mean that VIVA will never be useful enough of a service to drive significant transit ridership from this location. Even if it's frequencies improve, it only travels in an east-west direction and doesn't hit a lot of Markham's major trip generators.Agreed re: need for walkable amenities. In terms of transit though, the VIVA Bus is BRT essentially, running in protected lanes. It's this kind of density that the VIVA route needs to bump up the frequency to rider-attractive levels.
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