Toronto Brant Park | 35.36m | 11s | Lamb Dev Corp | a—A

salsa said:
^This is what the west don lands should have looked like!
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Oh you mean color and some sort of originality? In Toronto? Lulz. I agree. Torontos new communities are missed mopportunity after missed opportunity. Regent Park isn't bad though.
 
NBGtect said:
Well if you are denying a conspiracy, then why not allow ALL potential purchasers the opportunity to buy a parking space with any sized unit.

As it exists now (based on what you just wrote that the planning dept wants more parking than developers want) then it would make sense why developers (who's only goal is to make money) force purchasers to buy a larger unit in order to be able to also buy a parking spot. Developers make more profit on larger units. They make next to nothing on parking spaces.

RM may have some details wrong, but he's not far off in his thinking. You work with developers so of course you are going to deny the truth.

If developers offered parking for any sized unit, then I would think that things are fair. But developers claim that the reason is because people who buy smaller units don't have cars. That's BS. You need to live in a condo with limited parking to realize how desperate people are for a spot.

The reason is simple = there are no profits to be made on parking alone.
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Oh my god. I shouldn't even dignify this with a response. Development is an extremely risky business, millions of dollars are spent before developers ever see a dime coming back (remember, deposits are help in trust by a lawyer) and market conditions can change at any time, which makes projects with 4-6 year time lines very risky. If there was not enough profit in the deal, a construction lender would never finance it and it would never get built anyway. So unless a developer had $100 million dollars to finance their own project, there is not going to be a condo with 300 units and 300 parking spaces. Developers are looking to make profit, just like every other business. Some developers care very much about how the project looks like Brad Lamb and Symmetry Developments, two of the developers we work with, but they need to make financial sense to ever get off the ground.

The bottom line is it costs a lot of money to go underground (and takes time and time = money), so developers charge a high fee for parking, simple as that. Parking is not the profit generating portion of the project. The spaces are not offered for the small units because small units sell quickly without parking and often sell to investors that don't want parking. The larger units are the toughest ones to sell, and often sell to end-users (not investors) that require a parking spot, so developers want to make sure they have spaces left over for these buyers.

In many projects with a lot of parking, the spaces are not selling. For most young buyers I have come across buying at $300,000 or $350,000 unit don't want to spend $65,000 on parking, don't want the expense of owning a car (ie payment, insurance, gas, traffic, etc) and are choosing to use public transit or utilize a car share program.

There is not conspiracy, no attempt to screw the little guy. Land is expensive, construction expensive, development charges expensive, sites are small and difficult to assemble, some times the only way to make a project work financially is to eliminate more parking, if suites continue to sell without parking, then developers will continue to offer more units with no parking.
 
Even though you weren't going to dignify my post with a response I do appreciate the effort that went in to it. I guess I was just defending RM who seems like a really cool person with valid points and great photos.

Cheers
 
BMyers said:
Oh my god. I shouldn't even dignify this with a response. Development is an extremely risky business, millions of dollars are spent before developers ever see a dime coming back (remember, deposits are help in trust by a lawyer) and market conditions can change at any time, which makes projects with 4-6 year time lines very risky. If there was not enough profit in the deal, a construction lender would never finance it and it would never get built anyway. So unless a developer had $100 million dollars to finance their own project, there is not going to be a condo with 300 units and 300 parking spaces. Developers are looking to make profit, just like every other business. Some developers care very much about how the project looks like Brad Lamb and Symmetry Developments, two of the developers we work with, but they need to make financial sense to ever get off the ground.

The bottom line is it costs a lot of money to go underground (and takes time and time = money), so developers charge a high fee for parking, simple as that. Parking is not the profit generating portion of the project. The spaces are not offered for the small units because small units sell quickly without parking and often sell to investors that don't want parking. The larger units are the toughest ones to sell, and often sell to end-users (not investors) that require a parking spot, so developers want to make sure they have spaces left over for these buyers.

In many projects with a lot of parking, the spaces are not selling. For most young buyers I have come across buying at $300,000 or $350,000 unit don't want to spend $65,000 on parking, don't want the expense of owning a car (ie payment, insurance, gas, traffic, etc) and are choosing to use public transit or utilize a car share program.

There is not conspiracy, no attempt to screw the little guy. Land is expensive, construction expensive, development charges expensive, sites are small and difficult to assemble, some times the only way to make a project work financially is to eliminate more parking, if suites continue to sell without parking, then developers will continue to offer more units with no parking.
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To your point, the developer made it abundantly clear at the Committee of Adjustments that parking was not selling well at this building, hence the request to reduce the required numbers. From what I recall, the spots were not outrageously priced for the area, so it's not as if they were going to result in a profit.
 
colour doesn't need $2000 a square foot, but the quality seen in the buildings posted does. You would likely be looking at over $500 a square foot to simply build a place like that, ignoring aprroval costs, land costs, profit margins, etc. Buildings with colour are certainly possible, just not the ones depicted.
 
innsertnamehere said:
colour doesn't need $2000 a square foot, but the quality seen in the buildings posted does. You would likely be looking at over $500 a square foot to simply build a place like that, ignoring aprroval costs, land costs, profit margins, etc. Buildings with colour are certainly possible, just not the ones depicted.
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Go check out most of the buildings going up in Montreal, they look better than most of the garbage we get here. Are they also paying $2000 per square foot?
 
most of the buildings going up in Montreal
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?

Without your post showing images of "most of" the buildings going up in Montreal along with your reasoning for what makes each building better, your grass-is-always-greener comment rings totally hollow to me. I consider a lot of what's going up in MTL to be tacky trash, and without me posting images and arguments you similarly can dismiss my evaluation. Innsertnamehere's comment, in comparison, is perfectly reasonable, and not an excuse. He's arguing the quality of materials where you and I would likely be debating the more highly subjective matter of taste.

To try to get this thread back on topic with The Brant Park, as long as what we get here look likes what is shown in the rendering below—minimalist all-white grid exterior with minimal mullion window framing—then we'll have strengthened the argument that good stuff is happening in Toronto. Certainly Brad Lamb and aA's Theatre Park is racking up kudo after kudo these days for its glazing, so there's reason to hope that the same team will turn out a quality project here too.

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The slabs in Griffintown certainly aren't of a better quality or design. Neither are the awkward angles and stepbacks of the likes of Icone and l'Avenue. That doesn't mean there aren't great developments but, it not above what we see here in Toronto.
 
Tour des Canadiens looks a lot like stuff we get here IMO, except the podium is even more slabby than one like Maple Leaf Square...

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L'Avenue just looks like a tackier version of the Ritz-Carlton here, Altoria is a generic condo, Tour Deloitte is a stumpier and poor man's version of 100 Adelaide (though I would like to see Deloitte's Wellington office expanded into something bigger and more worthy of that corner).

Overall I don't see anything that's miles better than here.

Sorry if this is off-topic, interchange. I'll finish off my comment by saying I really hope they get the materials for this right, because it has loads of potential.
 
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