Hamilton McMaster Graduate Student Residence | 97.9m | 30s | Knightstone | Diamond Schmitt

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source: frinkiac .com
 
I feel bad for the students having to live in shoddy conditions, particularly considering these are Graduate students that want a clean, quiet place to relax or work. They can't even drink the water and even things like vents got covered up.

In the mad rush to finish the building, it sure seems like corners are definitely getting cut. Ugh.
 
Is there above-grade parking here? Couldn't find the right photo to see for myself. @innsertnamehere / @Lachlan Holmes / @Chris R.
There is, yes, like most Hamilton projects.

You can see it in @Chris R. 's photo from a little while ago:

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It's the gold-clad levels immediately above the ground floor. From what I recall, it's 3 levels of above-grade parking. Thankfully it's well shielded so isn't particularly visible.

Hamilton requires a parking ratio of around 0.5 for residential uses downtown, likely a bit higher here owing to the number of large multi-bedroom units which have higher rates.

Sales prices can't justify 5-6 levels of underground parking, generally speaking, and the city doesn't prohibit above-grade garages like Toronto does, so most projects have above-grade parking of some kind. Most have been pretty good about hiding it though so that it's not particularly visible. This is a good example, as is Cobalt and 75 James which have wrapped it with units so that it's not visible.

Hamilton looks like it will be eliminating parking minimums downtown next year however, so I expect it to become less common. Market demand for parking in Hamilton is still fairly strong though so I don't imagine it will disappear.
 
This picture really illustrates how much more of a 'city' Hamilton is than compared to KW. This is a real urban environment not a sprawling suburb.
KW is a city unto itself. It's not a suburb of anything...
 
I dunno... Kitchener is filling in quite a bit...

That's also a relatively old picture, it's from early 2022 just based on the progress at Breithaupt Block. I don't have a recent picture but here's another one from around the same time (slightly later by about a month or two) showing all of downtown.

Downtown Kitchener April 2022.jpg


All the buildings with tower cranes up have since been completed (except the Drewlo site) and now 900 King St W, Station Park Tower C and Tek Tower all have cranes up which will make the left side of this picture a lot taller. The right side of the picture is pretty barren with just the Drewlo site, however once Auburn starts on The Metz it will fill in quite nicely.
 
Personally I just find walking around downtown Kitchener or downtown Waterloo, you don't really feel like you're in a big city. You feel like you're in a small city, that happened to recently have a bunch of condos going up - spaced quite far apart. Walking around in downtown Hamilton, you really feel like you're in a bustling big city. Bigger than the population would suggest. It's an old downtown, not a new one like KW.
 

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