Toronto Ontario Line 3 | ?m | ?s | Metrolinx

nfitz said:
If Metrolinx can't at least break even flipping property after holding it for a few years, and increasing local property values ... then there's a big problem.

Hmm ... though there is a big problem ...
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If anything, if this is moving in the direction of HK's MTR in terms of capturing value of real estate development around stations, I think that would be a very positive thing.
 
afransen said:
If anything, if this is moving in the direction of HK's MTR in terms of capturing value of real estate development around stations, I think that would be a very positive thing.
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In many East Asian cities, the transit agency OWNS real estate that they lease or rent out, as another source of revenue.
 
W. K. Lis said:
In many East Asian cities, the transit agency OWNS real estate that they lease or rent out, as another source of revenue.
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The ‘Rail plus Property’ model: Hong Kong’s successful self-financing formula​

From link. Dated 2016.

Cities around the world are building or expanding public-transit systems to cope with population growth and urbanization. But even as metro systems get bigger and serve more people, most continue to lose money.

For more than three decades, though, Hong Kong’s MTR Corporation has defied the odds and delivered significant financial and social benefits: excellent transit, new and vibrant neighborhoods, opportunities for real-estate developers and small businesses, and the conservation of open space. The whole system operates on a self-sustaining basis, without the need for direct taxpayer subsidies.
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MTR’s railway system covers 221 kilometers and is used by more than five million people each weekday. It not only performs well—trains run on schedule 99.9 percent of the time—but actually makes a profit: $1.5 billion in 2014. MTR fares are also relatively low compared with those of metro systems in other developed cities. The average fare for an MTR trip in 2014 was less than $1.00, well under base fares in Tokyo (about $1.50), New York ($2.75), and Stockholm (about $4.00).

One important reason the system has been able to perform so well is that the government of Hong Kong has enabled MTR to make money from the property-value increases that typically follow the construction of rail lines. The key is a business model called “Rail plus Property” (R+P). For new rail lines, the government provides MTR with land “development rights” at stations or depots along the route. To convert these development rights to land, MTR pays the government a land premium based on the land’s market value without the railway.

MTR then builds the new rail line and partners with private developers to build properties. The choice of private developer is made through a competitive tender process. MTR receives a share of the profits that developers make from these properties; this share could be a percentage of total development profits, a fixed lump sum, or a portion of commercial properties built on the site. By capturing part of the value of the land and property around railway lines, MTR generates funds for new projects as well as for operations and maintenance. That is why it does not need government subsidies or loans. Revenues from R+P developments above stations along MTR’s Tseung Kwan O line, for example, financed the extension of that line to serve a new town, which has since grown to a population of 380,000.
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MTR has applied the R+P model extensively. Buildings sit over about half of the system’s 87 stations, amounting to 13 million square meters of floor area. New projects being planned or developed will add another 3.5 million square meters. A large proportion of MTR’s current investment-properties portfolio of more than 267,000 square meters came from the sharing of assets.

The financial advantages of the R+P model have been proved over time. Instead of having to pay construction costs or take on the risks of building a world-class railway, the government collects proceeds from the land premium and profits from its roughly 76 percent stake in the company, which is listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. During the 2014 financial year, MTR paid $590 million in dividends to the government. The R+P model also allows MTR to implement railway projects relatively quickly because it does not have to compete for public funds.

This model has become more than a source of railway financing; it is a critical part of Hong Kong’s urban-development approach. Planners and government agencies seek to make every new railway line or extension into a corridor where well-planned, high-quality communities can flourish.

R+P developments are not featureless places that people want to rush through. They offer amenities that let people meet their everyday needs: buying coffee in the morning, checking email and accessing information over free Wi-Fi, getting laundry done, or picking up dinner. With pedestrian corridors linking railway stations to surrounding buildings and parks, R+P developments anchor compact, pedestrian-friendly, and appealing communities. During Hong Kong’s famously heavy rainstorms and typhoons, the residents of R+P developments are prone to boast of how they can commute without getting wet.
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Through R+P, Hong Kong has demonstrated how integrating railway expansion with property development can help make public-transit systems financially self-reliant while also promoting sustainable urban growth. Can other cities replicate this model?

R+P works in part because of Hong Kong’s specific characteristics. The city’s dense population and scarce land make real estate highly valuable, which helps R+P developments generate reasonable profits. People in Hong Kong are accustomed to living close to transit facilities and are inclined to appreciate the convenience of linked railway and property developments. Furthermore, the government’s mandate that MTR operate according to prudent financial principles gave both sides a stake in finding a financially sustainable model for developing the city along railway corridors.

Even though Hong Kong is a unique case in many respects, other cities can still draw lessons from MTR’s experience with the R+P model. Encouraging commercial and residential development near transit hubs, for example, is something that many cities can do. Another lesson is to consider allowing transit systems to capture some of the value of the real estate along their routes. Profit-sharing deals with developers, partial ownership of new developments, and on-site property rentals can all yield revenue to help pay for new investments in transit. These approaches can ease the financial strain of expanding public transit while making cities better places to live and work.
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A 1 Bedroom/1 Bathroom, Size 272ft² rents for $16,000HKD/M ($2,608.93CDN). From link.
 
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innsertnamehere said:
looking at it in a bit more detail now - some of the property takes for it are a bit more extensive than I expected.

Exhibition takes a good number of warehouses along the south side of Liberty Village, which we already knew, so no surprise there.

Property takes through the core are pretty minimal other than occupying about half of Moss Park to build Sherbourne Station.

We all know they are taking the area bounded by King, Parliament, Mill, and Berkeley for Corktown Station, so again, no surprise.

Metrolinx will apparently be using the school site in the West Don Lands for staging, which I wasn't aware of.

East of the Don River is where the property takes become more extensive:
  • Most of the BMW dealership lot is apparently required. What little is left will be needed for the Broadview extension.
  • These buildings along the south side of Eastern Avenue, as well as the large self storage building on the north side of Eastern Avenue, will need to go.
  • The biggest surprise to me, Metrolinx is proposing to take this entire industrial building and parking lot along Carlaw - presumably for staging as it isn't directly on the alignment. Also likely to be a nice "tranist oriented community" afterwards.
  • The No Frills plaza on Carlaw is unsurprisingly going to be demolished as well.
  • This entire row of semis are going to go as well to accommodate the tunnel portal to the north of the No Frills plaza along Pape - this is new to me.
  • Going up to Pape and Danforth - the entire block of storefronts between Pape and Eaton Avenue, other than the larger office block right at the corner of Pape and Danforth, will go. This will be a big loss for the Danforth.
  • These houses along Eaton Avenue are saying goodbye as well.
  • As are all these lots along the south side of Gertrude Place, and this one house on the north side of the street
  • Two entire blocks of storefronts will be gone to make way for Cosburn Station - here and here.
  • We knew this block of houses would go for the tunnel portal to cross the Don Valley based on some news articles
  • Same with basically all these commercial properties in Thorncliffe Park to make way for the maintenance yard
  • The eastern half of the south Science Centre parking lot is gone for the Flemingdon Park station
  • Finally - the Esso and western portion of the Superstore parking lot is gone for the Eglinton station.
The biggest losses appear to be the block around Pape Station to be honest - I'm surprise we haven't seen media attention about that one.

Overall Metrolinx has done a great job of finding cost effective ways of delivering the line, I have to say, including pulling stations off main streets to reduce traffic impacts and costs related to traffic staging, and even finding a way to have about a kilometre of the line run at grade through the industrial areas of Thorncliffe Park and at Exhibition Station (getting 10% of the line to run at grade without tunnelling or elevating it will make a huge impact on costs!). These moves have created unusually large property requirements but Metrolinx will recoup a lot of those costs after project completion when they can sell a lot of the now excess land back for redevelopment, and will cut construction costs substantially.

It's refreshing to see Toronto returning to it's old ways of more creative, higher impact, lower cost subway building methods which were used for the original Yonge and Bloor-Danforth lines.
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I'd like to see a lot of the homes north of Danforth torn down (also any house with a gambrel roof for that matter, just cuz I really don't like them).

And I know we had Queen, but did we get station cross sections for the other interchanges of Pape and Osgoode.
 
innsertnamehere said:
looking at it in a bit more detail now - some of the property takes for it are a bit more extensive than I expected.

Exhibition takes a good number of warehouses along the south side of Liberty Village, which we already knew, so no surprise there.

Property takes through the core are pretty minimal other than occupying about half of Moss Park to build Sherbourne Station.

We all know they are taking the area bounded by King, Parliament, Mill, and Berkeley for Corktown Station, so again, no surprise.

Metrolinx will apparently be using the school site in the West Don Lands for staging, which I wasn't aware of.

East of the Don River is where the property takes become more extensive:
  • Most of the BMW dealership lot is apparently required. What little is left will be needed for the Broadview extension.
  • These buildings along the south side of Eastern Avenue, as well as the large self storage building on the north side of Eastern Avenue, will need to go.
  • The biggest surprise to me, Metrolinx is proposing to take this entire industrial building and parking lot along Carlaw - presumably for staging as it isn't directly on the alignment. Also likely to be a nice "tranist oriented community" afterwards.
  • The No Frills plaza on Carlaw is unsurprisingly going to be demolished as well.
  • This entire row of semis are going to go as well to accommodate the tunnel portal to the north of the No Frills plaza along Pape - this is new to me.
  • Going up to Pape and Danforth - the entire block of storefronts between Pape and Eaton Avenue, other than the larger office block right at the corner of Pape and Danforth, will go. This will be a big loss for the Danforth.
  • These houses along Eaton Avenue are saying goodbye as well.
  • As are all these lots along the south side of Gertrude Place, and this one house on the north side of the street
  • Two entire blocks of storefronts will be gone to make way for Cosburn Station - here and here.
  • We knew this block of houses would go for the tunnel portal to cross the Don Valley based on some news articles
  • Same with basically all these commercial properties in Thorncliffe Park to make way for the maintenance yard
  • The eastern half of the south Science Centre parking lot is gone for the Flemingdon Park station
  • Finally - the Esso and western portion of the Superstore parking lot is gone for the Eglinton station.
The biggest losses appear to be the block around Pape Station to be honest - I'm surprise we haven't seen media attention about that one.

Overall Metrolinx has done a great job of finding cost effective ways of delivering the line, I have to say, including pulling stations off main streets to reduce traffic impacts and costs related to traffic staging, and even finding a way to have about a kilometre of the line run at grade through the industrial areas of Thorncliffe Park and at Exhibition Station (getting 10% of the line to run at grade without tunnelling or elevating it will make a huge impact on costs!). These moves have created unusually large property requirements but Metrolinx will recoup a lot of those costs after project completion when they can sell a lot of the now excess land back for redevelopment, and will cut construction costs substantially.

It's refreshing to see Toronto returning to it's old ways of more creative, higher impact, lower cost subway building methods which were used for the original Yonge and Bloor-Danforth lines.
Click to expand...
This is really great to see. Toronto seems to have had this weird obsession with putting station boxes underneath roads, causing significant and long term disruption to traffic, it’s nice to see the approach of just buying up some properties beside the street and putting the station there instead, avoiding all disruption to the street and probably making construction a lot easier and cheaper too - no need to do work underneath road decking. In terms of disruption, Pape or Cosburn probably won’t even that different from the underground phases of a large condo development. This should have absolutely been the approach for Eglinton. The contrast between disruption along Eglinton and Pape will be immense.
 
innsertnamehere said:
looking at it in a bit more detail now - some of the property takes for it are a bit more extensive than I expected.

Exhibition takes a good number of warehouses along the south side of Liberty Village, which we already knew, so no surprise there.

Property takes through the core are pretty minimal other than occupying about half of Moss Park to build Sherbourne Station.

We all know they are taking the area bounded by King, Parliament, Mill, and Berkeley for Corktown Station, so again, no surprise.

Metrolinx will apparently be using the school site in the West Don Lands for staging, which I wasn't aware of.

East of the Don River is where the property takes become more extensive:
  • Most of the BMW dealership lot is apparently required. What little is left will be needed for the Broadview extension.
  • These buildings along the south side of Eastern Avenue, as well as the large self storage building on the north side of Eastern Avenue, will need to go.
  • The biggest surprise to me, Metrolinx is proposing to take this entire industrial building and parking lot along Carlaw - presumably for staging as it isn't directly on the alignment. Also likely to be a nice "tranist oriented community" afterwards.
  • The No Frills plaza on Carlaw is unsurprisingly going to be demolished as well.
  • This entire row of semis are going to go as well to accommodate the tunnel portal to the north of the No Frills plaza along Pape - this is new to me.
  • Going up to Pape and Danforth - the entire block of storefronts between Pape and Eaton Avenue, other than the larger office block right at the corner of Pape and Danforth, will go. This will be a big loss for the Danforth.
  • These houses along Eaton Avenue are saying goodbye as well.
  • As are all these lots along the south side of Gertrude Place, and this one house on the north side of the street
  • Two entire blocks of storefronts will be gone to make way for Cosburn Station - here and here.
  • We knew this block of houses would go for the tunnel portal to cross the Don Valley based on some news articles
  • Same with basically all these commercial properties in Thorncliffe Park to make way for the maintenance yard
  • The eastern half of the south Science Centre parking lot is gone for the Flemingdon Park station
  • Finally - the Esso and western portion of the Superstore parking lot is gone for the Eglinton station.
The biggest losses appear to be the block around Pape Station to be honest - I'm surprise we haven't seen media attention about that one.

Overall Metrolinx has done a great job of finding cost effective ways of delivering the line, I have to say, including pulling stations off main streets to reduce traffic impacts and costs related to traffic staging, and even finding a way to have about a kilometre of the line run at grade through the industrial areas of Thorncliffe Park and at Exhibition Station (getting 10% of the line to run at grade without tunnelling or elevating it will make a huge impact on costs!). These moves have created unusually large property requirements but Metrolinx will recoup a lot of those costs after project completion when they can sell a lot of the now excess land back for redevelopment, and will cut construction costs substantially.

It's refreshing to see Toronto returning to it's old ways of more creative, higher impact, lower cost subway building methods which were used for the original Yonge and Bloor-Danforth lines.
Click to expand...
Regarding the Flemingdon Park and Science Centre station staging area... It is ripe for development. Wouldn't be suprised if we see a TOC in the coming years on those lands. Very excited lets get the environment stuff behind us, contract signed and shovels in the ground.
 
Of interest - temporary road deck and station box excavation over the future station box for Mt. Pleasant Station on the Broadway extension in Vancouver. The north side of the road deck is in place and excavation on the south side is underway (support columns are in place for the south side). Eventually the road will be 4 lanes (2 each way) during construction.
 
Is there no stop between King and Bathurst and Exhibition? Seems like a good distance. Garrison point seems like a natural in-between.
 
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