Rouge Bijou (Downtown Markham, Remington, 10 + 3x 7s, Quadrangle)

[billonlogan]

Downtown of future around corner?

Apr 8, 2006
Chris Traber, Staff Writer
Courtesy: Markham Economist & Sun

The concept of living close to where you work and shop has served Europeans well for many centuries.
Borrowing old world blueprints of self-contained neighbourhoods that offer life's essentials and extravagances, a Vaughan developer will soon bring the idea to Markham.

The Remington Group plans to launch a high-density, compact, mixed use and transit-supported alternative to urban sprawl in the form of Downtown Markham. The company owns all the land, which has passed zoning rules.

The $3-billion, 243-acre community flanked by Hwy. 407, Warden Avenue, Kennedy Road and Hwy. 7, will eventually accommodate 9,500 residents and 16,000 employees, Remington marketing director Serena Quaglia said.

The project, featuring 175 luxury town manors and 3,725 condominiums in addition to almost one million square feet of commercial and retail space, will be phased in over 15 years.

With the blessing of the Town of Markham and following a provincial edict focused on managed growth, Downtown Markham is the most ambitious undertaking in Remington's 60-year portfolio, Ms Quaglia.

The project will eventually become Markham's focal point, Regional Councillor Jack Heath predicted.

"I'm excited by it. It'll take time to build out, but there are many ingredients coming that tells me this will be the centre for Markham for years to come," Mr. Heath said. "This (project) is one way of showing Markham's leadership in many ways."

Markham council identified the need for a new downtown about 10 years ago.

"Downtown Markham is a high-density project instead of a far flung development reaching into and consuming the countryside," Ms Quaglia said. "It's a shop, live, work and play environment inspired by what's worked in Europe for centuries and answers to the smart growth principle."

Central to the plan is the objective of eliminating long commutes, she said.

The hub of the community will be an all-season European-flavour piazza, a social and cultural gathering place. Each distinct precinct will be interconnected, melding residential areas with shopping concourses, parkland and businesses.

The main promenade, approximately 1 kilometre in length, will be open only to public transit and pedestrians. All other vehicles will be banned.

While increasing the number of people per square foot, the project aims to counter the concept of density and saturation with ample green space, low rise buildings and residential roof-top terraces. Walking and hiking trails will link neighbourhoods.

Downtown Markham may well become a model for the rest of Canada, Ms Quaglia said.

Considering 90 per cent of all trips in the GTA are by car with 80 per cent of people driving alone, keeping citizens close to home makes sense for the environment, economy and psyche, she added.

"The live-work concept is something we have to embrace in the future," Mr. Heath said. "We can't build roads fast enough and we have to make sure that we don't take up all the farmland from here to Simcoe."

A presentation centre is scheduled to open in late spring, Ms Quaglia said. Condos will start at approximately $170,000 and manors at $490,000.
-----------------------

Considering 90 per cent of all trips in the GTA are by car with 80 per cent of people driving alone,

I don't think that trend will lessen without reliable public transit locally and to downtown TO.

 

[unimaginative2]

Town manor? That's the biggest oxymoron I've ever heard.

 

[Towered]

Yet another reason to build a DLR subway line - run it from Union up Pape, then up Don Mills to Steeles, then curve it eastward to Pacific Mall and finally end it at Downtown Markham. Byt the time the line makes it that far, that node will be built!

 

[wyliepoon]

^ With so many twists and turns, I bet it would be really bad for the ears for someone to ride the entire route!

 

[Crazy Canuck07]

I like the idea of a pedetrian/pt only 1 km promenade. Would make for a nice walk.

 

[Baghai747]

This is an awesome project. This will definitely put Markham on the radar and make it one of the top regions in the GTA!

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

I hate to pop your boosterism bubble, Baghai, but put Markham on the radar? Of what? And make it top regions in the GTA? For what?

Seriously, stop reading the promotional materials as is and try to think critically as to what it all means. For example, a 1km pedestrian and transit only corridor where there is no pre-existing rationale for it? You're begging for a sterile stretch in the area - and we haven't even gotten to usage in the dead of winter. Pretty renderings doesn't show that reality, does it?

AoD

 

[Baghai747]

How does this differ from "pretty" renderings of a condo in the downtown Toronto area? When a condo project is promoted all you see in those pretty drawings is the building itself and maybe a couple walking happily into the lobby. What they don't show you is that office building right beside or the other condo blocking the northwest view. They don't show you how that project is sandwiched between two other taller buildings. That's how you should take it as...promotional material. Same goes with Downtown Markham ..just promotional material. How can you be negative about an ambitious project like Downtown Markham? It is going in the right direction isn't it? Markham real estate is booming and the town is excited about these new projects that will add to the value of this region. Plain and simple.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Baghai:

I can't say for others, but some of us DO look at the site plan(s) and relate it to well established planning principles and neighbourhood context, pretty renderings notwithstanding.

As to the matter of being negative, just because it is different doesn't put it beyond the realm of criticism. Markham should know - considering the New Urbanist experience that is Cornell didn't quite work out as hoped and expected - which is something that has been forewarned by others.

So Markham is booming and some are excited about it, yes - does it mean the decision making done at this moment will have no negative implications in the future? No.

AoD

 

[alklay]

Markham about to get a $3B makeover
Private funds launch 20-year project
Home for 9,500; workplace for 16,000

Apr. 18, 2006. 06:26 AM

NAOMI CARNIOL
STAFF REPORTER - the Star


Move over urban sprawl, there's a new plan in town.

The Town of Markham and a developer are planning a glittering $3 billion downtown that will gain momentum in June when a sales office opens its doors.

Don't expect a dull strip mall or rows and rows of look-alike homes. Downtown Markham will feature glamorous boutiques, restaurants, hotels, parks, offices, condos and townhouses.

Drawings for the project show wide sidewalks and ritzy shops that look like Manhattan's Fifth Avenue.

The cafes look like they came straight from Brussels' town square.

The planned nightclubs, theatres and skateboard park are all part of an effort to create a place people can live, work and play, said Serena Quaglia, marketing director for the Remington Group, which owns the 98 hectares where the downtown will be built.

The entire project will take about 20 years to build and will run from Warden Ave. to the GO Transit tracks near Kennedy Rd. and between Highway 7 and Highway 407.

About 9,500 people will call the spot home while 16,000 employees will work in the nearby shops, restaurants and offices.

The high density will reduce the amount of farmland chewed up to build new housing for the GTA's growing population. "It's better for the environment," Quaglia said.

The project may also encourage more people to leave their cars at home. It takes into account already announced transit improvements in the area, including enhanced bus service and additional GO Transit service.

In some suburban developments, you need to drive to buy a carton of milk.

In downtown Markham, "you could run downstairs and run across the street to a convenience store.

"Things are in walkable distances," Quaglia says.

Creating a pedestrian-friendly place doesn't just benefit the environment. It builds a sense of community, which is also one of the reasons behind the planned Piazza or outdoor square. "We want to encourage ... social interaction," Quaglia said.

The square will host art exhibitions, jazz quartets, fashion shows and a farmers' market. It will be a place people can mingle over their lunch hour or after work, Quaglia says. "Our vision is it's really everyone's outdoor living room."

The Remington Group and the Town of Markham have been discussing the project for more than a decade, but the opening of a sales office in June will send a signal that plans are firming up.

So far, the project has been privately funded by the Remington Group, but "a heap of public money" will go toward things like roads and utilities, says Markham Mayor Don Cousens.

"These are not small investments."

Markham council has approved the project, Cousens said.

"It will give us a new heart and centre."

 

[Antiloop33rpm]

Drawings for the project show wide sidewalks and ritzy shops that look like Manhattan's Fifth Avenue.

The cafes look like they came straight from Brussels' town square.

News article or promotional insert for the developers?

There has been enough time go by since this was first announced that there should have been more information released. Instead it just seems to be continual rehashing of the same developer speak.

I really dont have any faith that this project will be good. If this had been proposed 15 years ago than maybe it would have been worth getting excited over. But what little Ive seen and heard seems to indicate that this is nothing more than New Urbanism without the charm and retro kitsch of other projects, nor any indication that this is going to have stronger connections with transit, pedestrians, or bicycles.

If this excites you and you think its some great step forward for Markham, hey, you are entitled to your opinion. Personally, I think this effort really doesnt deserve any attention at all. Mediocre at best, the same suburban garbage and autocentric sprawl in a new trendy package at worst.

Its rather sad when I have more hope in Vaughan doing something worthwhile (now that it will be getting a subway connection) than Markham.

 

[samsonyuen]

From: retailtrafficmag.com/mag/...orth_wind/
______________________
North Wind

By Albert Warson

Jul 1, 2006 12:00 PM



For 12 years, the Town of Markham, on Toronto's northeast fringe, was in limbo as developers, elected officials and residents wrangled over how to enliven the city's downtown. At stake was a 243-acre site, redevelopment of which will reshape this city of 265,000 residents.


Government officials especially have been concerned about containing urban sprawl. And it has taken intense back-and-forth talks with developers The Remington Group to come up with a plan, unveiled in late June, that everyone, finally, seems to be happy with.

The deal was announced with great fanfare as the developers and city officials stood together triumphantly and held a press conference unveiling the $2.66-billion project, which will take 20 years to build out.

How was Remington able to break the deadlock after so long? The answer is mixed-use.

“The incentive 10 or 12 years ago would have been to do a conventional development, and get in and get out quickly,†says Rudy Bratty, Remington's chairman and CEO. “By following the municipality's preference for New Urbanism [enshrined in Markham's official plan], you get more density, but you have to be far more patient getting to the point of construction.â€

The trend that U.S. developers have been pushing for the past two years is now making the leap north of the border. And Canadian developers are not just aping the idea of blending uses, but also seeing the projects as a key part of revitalizing urban cores. The majority of the mixed-use developments in the works are in Canadian cities, with projects sprouting in and around Quebec, Vancouver and Toronto that blend retail, office, residential, hotel and other uses.

Remington's Markham will combine Euro-style streets, lined with small shops, with condos and other commercial uses, and the 243-acre development will be interspersed with parks and other public spaces. First up: 200 condominiums and 175 townhouses. After that, 1 million square feet of commercial space ranging from luxury retail, small shops, a boutique hotel, restaurants, cinemas, cafes and nightclubs, will follow, as well as 4.2 million square feet of office space.

In developing the plan, Bratty — along with Markham mayor Don Cousens — made repeated trips around the U.S. looking at how cities were approaching urban revitalization. There they saw examples, such as City Center in West Palm Beach, Fla., that helped shape their vision. In the end, Cousens and Bratty hope that by 2026, developers and city officials from all over the continent will be making similar treks to Markham to follow its example on how to rebuild.

“This is a model that will be emulated by many municipalities across North America, as a solution to urban sprawl,†Cousens says.

Blake Hudema, an urban planner and president of Hudema Consulting Group Limited, believes mixed-use will work in Canada and he expects it to progress more smoothly than it will within the U.S.

“Canada in some respects can lead this development,†Hudema says. “Our inner cities are much more vibrant, typically, than many U.S. cities, where there is a need for a lot of revitalization. Most Canadian cities are healthy and offer a good platform for developers and investors to look at [when considering] redevelopment into mixed-use centers.â€

Inner cities, he says, are good places for “densification.†Around Vancouver, land is scarce and expensive. That, he says, “is creating an impetus to create a greater amount of mixed-use. We've also always had fairly intense, dense development, so developers, investors, retailers and customers are attuned to underground or structured parking.â€

Although many parts of Canada are embracing mixed-use, the province of Alberta, where the office vacancy rate is a microscopic 2 percent, is an exception. There, six high-rise office towers are under construction, but no other uses are involved.

Edmonton, closest to the oil sands drilling projects in the far northern reaches of the province, is the same. Robert Knight, vice president, retail, of Western Canada, Oxford Properties Group, says, “the Bay and Sears department store anchors function like regional shopping centers in downtown Calgary and are renovated and upgraded periodically, but there are no mixed-use centers.†Nor do they exist in the provincial capital: Edmonton City Centre downtown, with its three high-rise office towers, which is essentially the same as similar developments in other Canadian cities, with their bustling retail concourses.

“People will come downtown on weekends for shopping and entertainment, although parking is difficult and they work there during the week, so there is no novelty,†he says. Mixed-use is not hugely popular with local developers because there are “significant operating challenges. It's great to think of adding a hotel into a cluster of office buildings, but it's hard to add on and could obstruct views,†Knight says. “The crossover between hotel guests utilizing the retail to a significant degree is so-so. Tourists staying at a hotel will likely shop at its stores, but business guests will shop when they're back home.â€

But aside from Alberta, the rest of Canada seems won to the concept.

Peter Sharpe, Cadillac Fairview Corp. Limited president and CEO noted at an ICSC regional conference in Montreal in June that, “many of the new projects underway in Canada appear more ‘hybrid’ in nature, combining various elements of design and function and offering a different glimpse of the future. It is a trend to pay attention to.â€

“No one is building enclosed malls.â€

Jean-Francois Breton, copresident of development company Le Groupe Devimco, noted at the ICSC conference that, “demand is very strong because no one is building enclosed malls in Quebec.â€

RioCan Real Estate Income Trust, Toronto, the largest REIT in Canada, has a 50 percent interest in the Quartiers Dix 30 project outside Montreal. The firm is contemplating expanding the 1.5-million-square-foot mall, which hasn't even opened yet, with a hotel and convention center.

In neighboring Ontario, Toronto Eaton Centre's cavernous 1.6 million square feet of retail space, meshed with three high-rise office towers and a 459-room hotel, will be completed this fall after unfolding for nearly 30 years. The last pieces on its downtown city block include three new levels of parking, a new three-story business school and 130,000 square feet of new large-format retail.

John Sullivan, senior vice president, of development with The Cadillac Fairview Corporation (CF), Toronto, says the company is scouting large mixed-use opportunities in Montreal, Calgary and Vancouver.

“Fifteen years ago the focus was on huge regional malls and huge downtown office buildings. Today there isn't a great demand for either of them. We want to keep that same scale, but because of the demand for individual components, we're mixing it up a bit,†he says.

Inside out

The company is redeveloping its 50-year-old Don Mills Shopping Centre, in suburban Toronto. At the time of construction, the 462,000-square-foot mall sat in a 200-acre greenfield site. The mall was enclosed in 1978. Development around the site has put it in a more urban setting. So Cadillac Fairview is starting from scratch. It demolished the center early this summer and will put in its place an open-air, mixed-use town center development with retail in the first phase and residential in the second phase.

A similar story is unfolding in Vancouver, where the first open-air shopping center there, the 56-year-old, 1.2-million-square-foot Park Royal Shopping Centre, has also morphed into a mixed-use project. In addition to retail, it now has 100,000 square feet of office and self-storage space and 500 rental apartment units.

The land under the center is owned by a First Nations group, to which the mall's developer, Larco Investments Ltd., pays rent. That relationship has eased the project's transformation as First Nations has given Larco flexible zoning, which enables multiple uses close to each other.

“Shopping center land is typically zoned for specific uses, and municipal planners have become very single-purpose-oriented. We had the flexibility to do different types of real estate, depending on market,†says Rich Amantea, Larco's vice president.

Nearby, Larco is trying to take advantage of the open zoning to build Morgan Crossing, which Amantea describes as “Canada's first pure mixed-use project, from the ground up,†which, if approved by First Nations, will contain 450,000 square feet of lifestyle retail and 450 condo units. He expects to start construction early next year and open in the fall of 2008.

“Residential development is generally driving mixed-use from a retail standpoint,†Amantea says. “Developers want to build residential, and planners want a soft street-side edge to them, so they're encouraging residential developers to do retail street level to achieve greater social interaction with the local community.â€

Success not guaranteed

While mixed-use centers tend to meet developers' expectations, success is not always guaranteed. Financial performance can be mixed. Hazelton Lanes, in Toronto's upscale Yorkville neighborhood, for example, was developed in the late 1970s by William Louis-Dreyfus, chairman of the New York-based Louis Dreyfus Group.

It incorporated retail, office and residential uses (some of the condo units have 2,000-square-foot terraces) in a single, medium-rise and very classy building. It was a winner for many years, but then retail began to slide and that segment bled red ink for years. It didn't recover until a new owner brought in Whole Foods Market Inc., an Austin, Texas-based chain of organic food supermarkets.

It was the first Whole Foods store in Canada, and it was successful from the day it opened, which has also turned Hazelton Lanes' retail around.

Ivanhoe Cambridge's MetroTown in suburban Barnaby, for example, with the largest regional shopping center in British Columbia (1.7 million square feet of commercial space) has a new Hilton Hotel with conference facilities, among other uses.

Keeping people in the city

And under construction is Grosvenor Canada's The RISE, a 290,000-square-foot development on a sloping, 2.2-acre full block under construction in downtown Vancouver. It's designed for 10,000- to 60,000-square-foot retail tenants and 92 residential units which will actually sit on top of the center. Not everybody gets to have a shopping center in their basement.

“It keeps people in the inner city from driving out to suburban shopping centers, so there is less traffic congestion [and polluted air] and it brings more new-format retailers downtown,†Hudema says.

Entertainment centers (cinema multi-plexes/game arcades/food concessions) will be “cautiously developed†in newer mixed-use centers because of high construction costs and unpredictable income (except for popcorn sales). Residential and other commercial developments are a more likely category, such as Bosa Properties' Highgate Village residential/commercial project in Burnaby, which is being built on a former strip mall site.

Some mixed-use centers don't start out that way. Aberdeen Centre, a 380,000-square-foot Asian mall in suburban Richmond, B.C., is one example. Michael Heeney, executive director of Bing Thom Architects in Vancouver, which designed the mall, says Thomas Fung [chairman and CEO of The Fairchild Group, a mixed media enterprise], decided to integrate a 120-unit condo into the mall a few years after it was built.

It is under construction, Heeney says, and in the meantime Fung has moved most of his office and broadcasting studios into the complex, which also allows him to offer on-site print and broadcast promotional services to his tenants.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

From the Globe Real Estate Section, by John Bentley Mays:

ARCHITECTURE
A project's bow to the new suburbanism
JOHN BENTLEY MAYS

From Friday's Globe and Mail

Goodbye, suburban sprawl, and hello to "the hottest new trend in real estate": the new village.

That's the opinion of senior editor Chris Taylor in an article posted last week to the website of Business 2.0, the magazine he works for. Mr. Taylor tempts readers with the following invitation: "Picture the scene — it's 2025, and you and your family are living in a beautiful, leafy-green village that seems more 19th century than 21st, even though it has only been in existence for 10 years and is just 20 miles from a major American city."

Make it a major Canadian city and make that city Toronto, since any winds that change the face of American suburbia in the next few decades will surely sweep across the Greater Toronto Area. If, in fact, they are not doing so already.

To be sure, the recently launched $3-billion development by Remington Group known as Downtown Markham isn't exactly what Mr. Taylor is calling a "new village." With a projected population of 10,000, it's too big for that.

But both the new village concept and Downtown Markham belong to the same general phenomenon, which is definitely looking like the next big thing in suburban development. It's about greenfield communities composed of housing, services, places of employment and parks in easy, close proximity to each other, as opposed to big tracts of housing a car trip away from the nearest milk store.

And speaking of cars, the new suburb — large or small — will be very much about giving up the century-old North American addiction to driving everywhere, and learning how to walk where we need to go.

As an expression of this new suburbanism, the 243-acre Downtown Markham development, near Highway 407 and Warden Avenue, is striking and very ambitious, while not being too futuristic. The clearest example of the developer's caution has to do with the car, which stays as "the principal means of personal and commercial transportation," according to an invitation for bids on the architectural work to be done. Given the time-frame of the project — just 20 years — I think it's realistic to assume that cars will still be very much with us when Downtown Markham is finished.

But the development does look forward to a time when driving automobiles will be a sharply less desirable way to get around. A fine pedestrian promenade will bisect Downtown Markham, and the heart of it will be a very walkable retail and entertainment district. Throughout its promotional materials, Remington emphasizes the "European" scale and city-sense it intends: something mid-rise, for instance, with a strong street wall, a pervasive friendliness toward pedestrian traffic and an increased presence for mass transit.

There is also a welcome and unsuburban attitude in these plans toward sustainability: heating and cooling for the entire project, including the employment district, will be provided by a nearby electrical co-generation facility. "We are supplying what people want," Remington chief executive officer Rudy Bratty told me.

"They understand that automobile emissions are not good for the body or the soul. We are providing a quality of life, as well as a lifestyle."

Though the build-out of Downtown Markham has only just begun, it appears to be an idea whose time has come: The 105 condominium units in the first residential building to go up for sale — a 10-storey gateway block called Rouge Bijou — sold out in a matter of hours.

The 82-unit second building, Rouge Terraces, was a similarly quick sell. (Prices ranged from $185,900 to $486,900 for suites between 470 and 1,735 square feet in Rouge Bijou and 560 to 1,570 square feet in Rouge Terraces.)

Two of 12 buildings to be designed for the site by the Toronto firm Quadrangle Architects, Rouge Bijou and Rouge Terraces are conventional modernist replies to the developer's call for "place-making" that works its magic through "change, contrast and intricacy of façade, form, colour, or materials." Remington's brochure presents visions of future streetscapes that are more along Victorian lines, with windows and storefronts framed by much masonry.

Quadrangle's scheme, in contrast to all that, features two-storey lofts at street-level, and a standard-issue façade of brick, glass and precast concrete above the lofts. Rouge Bijou is crowned by a short, luminous fin — a top that's too inconspicuous, perhaps, but one that suits the general modesty of the building.

But will such modesty be the rule in the entire architectural design of Downtown Markham? Or will more daring ideas be coming off the drawing boards? It will be interesting to see if this vast project's architectural expressions ever match the boldness of its overall conception.

AoD

 

[wyliepoon]

No doubt Remington will have to produce more bold designs in the future if it wants to accomplish what was shown in the earlier streetscape renderings. The Rouge Bijou looks unfortunately like a conventional suburban condo building, and it appears from the rendering that it is a single-use building with no retail at street level.

 

[unimaginative2]

I don't know...that's not what I see in that rendering you posted. It seems to me like it meets the street far better than normal suburban projects, and that looks like retail space at the bottom.