[Downtown Victoria] The Cosmopolitan | Rental, commercial | 5-storeys | Canceled

[Rob Randall]

Rental apartments proposed for lower Fort Street

By Robert Randall • Published on Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Local businessman Jurgen Weyand is seeking permission from City Hall to demolish a pair of vintage commercial buildings in Victoria’s Old Town in order to make way for a new low-rise mixed-use project.

The old buildings, in the 600 block of Fort Street between Broad and Government across from the Bay Centre, have been a fixture for many years although they are architecturally unremarkable and have not been deemed worthy of a Heritage plaque.

The proposed replacement building would feature ground floor retail topped with four storeys of residential market-priced apartments. Weyand plans to call it The Cosmopolitan, or The Cosmo for short. The rear of the building will butt against David Chard’s Sovereign condo project over on Broughton Street.

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NOTE: Meeting is tonight, 7 pm at Silver Threads, across from the Hudson. Please attend.

[ryleyb]

Excellent, right beside the Sovereign!

[Nparker]

I wish the developer luck with this. He's going to need it to get this "skyscraper" (lol) built in this area. That being said The Sovereign did get approved so I suppose anything is possible.

My one beef: calling a 5-story rental building "Cosmopolitan" seems a bit ironic, but perhaps that's what passes for "a city of the universe" here in BANANA town.

[Baro]

Replacing 2 story with 5 story should be a density improvement, but I really hope the architecture is worthy of the area. I think our obsession with large balconies holds back a lot of urban architecture in this situation. Europe has mastered the 5-8 story zero-setback apartment and I'd love to see something truly cosmopolitan.

[LJ]

Mastered like this?


[Uncredited image removed]

[G-Man]

Are you suggesting that building is indicative of 5 - 8 storey European buildings?

[aastra]

Show me a building from Europe that doesn't look like that.

[G-Man]

Good point.

[Kapten Kapsell]

I was at the presentation last night.

The proposal is technically '6' storeys, due to the fact that the commercial floor is 25 feet tall (this height was utilized as it matches the podium height of the Sovereign. So there is potential second floor or mezzanine level that could occupy the upper part of the commercial space, but residential won't begin until the 'third' floor.

The proposed building height would make it almost as tall as the adjacent Yarrow Building (one of my Old Town favourites).

All of the residential suites would face north or south and would feature floor-to-ceiling windows to maximize light penetration. Each suite would be about 350-450 sq. feet in size and there would be a single larger suite for the live-in caretaker.

[aastra]

25 feet? Is that right? Normally I complain about how the ground floors of new buildings are too short but I sure can't say that in this instance.

Wouldn't that be the tallest ground floor around there? I suppose the ground floor of the Munro's Books building is probably about that same height, but I doubt there are too many others.

[Kapten Kapsell]

As the developer put it, that extra-tall commercial/mezzanine level is the only reason why they are requesting a zoning variance (for extra height). They obviously don't want their lowest residential floor to face a blank concrete wall (for the south-facing units). And they need a minimum of 4 residential floors to meet CMHC insurance requirements for mixed-use rental buildings (i.e. commercial cannot exceed 20% of building).

[Dylan Leblanc]

Here is the design so far. The developer stresses that this design is very preliminary and is subject to change.

One of the issues the developer and architect (Chow Low Hammond Architects) have to deal with at this site is the 25 foot podium of the upcoming Sovereign project on Broughton Street. This project backs onto the podium of the Sovereign, which is windowless and will be built right on the lot line.

To obtain a CMHC approved mortgage to built commercial space along with rental units, the building will need to have (a maximum, I think) 20% of commercial space and 80% residential space.

To do this, one floor of commercial space and four floors of residential space would give the 20/80 split, but if the first floor were average height (say 10 to 15 feet) then the second floor (with it's apartments) would look directly across to the concrete wall podium of the Sovereign, which wouldn't be a very nice situation. The developer wishes to put in an extra high first floor so that the second floor apartments will begin at a height above the podium of the Sovereign.

The setback on the Fort Street side of the building may be removed (I think this was suggested by the City to match existing Old Town building forms), and the setback on the back of the building increased (starting at the second floor) to distance it from the Sovereign.



In this rendering, the white block on top of the building is actually the top of the Sovereign behind it. Also, what may appear to be the first two floors is actually just one floor. Four floors of apartments are above.

[LJ]

Originally Posted by G-Man

Are you suggesting that building is indicative of 5 - 8 storey European buildings?

Yes.

[Baro]

I actually quite like this. An in-fill that matches the massing of it's old-town neighbours and the city hasn't demanded suburbanization!

[G-Man]

I like it from this side but what about that West facing wall. That is a huge space that will be visible from Government Street. Normally I am ok with blank walls when there is a good chance that it will get redeveloped next door. In this case I think that is unlikely.

[G-Man]

Originally Posted by LJ

Yes.

So you have never been to Europe or have seen a picture of any city in Europe but know that communist era eastern block housing was ugly?

[Baro]

Why do you think corner redevelopment is unlikely? Ugly single story building with no heritage value, seems ripe for redevelopment.

[G-Man]

That spot would be a Madoff grudge match that i can't even fathom.

[Nparker]

Originally Posted by G-Man

That spot would be a Madoff grudge match that i can't even fathom.

For my own peace of mind, please tell me there is at least a slight possibility, in some distant future, when Ms. Madoff is no longer on the Victoria city council!

[Dylan Leblanc]

The west facing wall of this proposal will not have any windows, as per fire regulations. The architect has said though that something would be done to increase the attractiveness of the wall.

The lot on the corner of Government and Fort is most likely too small to ever be redeveloped with something high enough to signigicantly block the blank west facing wall of this proposal.

[Dylan Leblanc]

Here are more renderings, courtesy the developer, Jurgen Weyand, and Chow Low Hammond Architects. The developer stresses that this design is very preliminary and is subject to change.

Also, don't know if this has been said yet but this building would be all batchelor suites (rentals) with one larger suite for a caretaker, and there would be no parking.

In this rendering the black box on top of the building is the Sovereign in behind.



_

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btw, Toronto is currently building a 41 storey residential building with no parking! http://www.mycondolife.ca/images/6/6..._with_RCMI.JPG

[G-Man]

I really do like it. It is a great concept and I hope it goes ahead. The extra tall commercial would be good for a larger store too.

Aastra - I would bet that the Bard and Banker has at least 20foot ceilings. The Tabaconnist has decent ceiling height.

In the other direction the td bank has double height ceilings and that building is of course on the heritage registry.

I would hope that it would be more than coloured paint on the wall. The best blank wall in the city is still the Soho on Mason which has bricked in false windows. This would be acceptable in this location too.

[Bernard]

I like the look of it, but the one thing that concerns me is that it will make the 600 block of Fort Street darker. Fort is narrower at this point than the other side of Douglas. At its narrowest, Fort is about 5 meters narrower on the 600 block. There is a nice gathering space at Broad and Fort and I am just a bit concerned that a darker Fort will not be a positive for the street.

That said, I am do like the look of the building

[Baro]

I'd love to design a 5 story building to go on the corner. I'm sure a building that makes economic sense could be built there in the future. But I still hope the blank wall will be interesting in the mean time.

[LJ]

Originally Posted by G-Man

So you have never been to Europe or have seen a picture of any city in Europe but know that communist era eastern block housing was ugly?

Actually I spent October/November in Europe. I can send you thousands of pics of "old" apartments that aren't bad, I stayed in one for two weeks, but it was built in the 1600s.

The majority of "modern" apartments look like the sample I posted. Butt ugly!