The Condos are Coming!

The Condo development 1 Adam Street, which no longer has Adam street going through it, is now branded as Victoria Common. They have had a couple of public meetings where the community was invited and have recently been having open houses for real estate agents, brokers etc. They have an office on Louisa which will be open soon three days a week on Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

On Tuesday, June 19, there was a special event for invited groups and the MHBPNA Blogster was happy to attend. The organic Mill Street beer and gourmet pasta were fabulous!

The units are selling in the $100,000 to $200,000 range with more several buildings and town-houses planned. Over a period of 7-8 years they plan to build 1200 units.

This will be one extremely large development with a combination of condos and town-homes, a large green area with many amenities for the owners and the surrounding residents. We have heard rumours about eventually a skating rink, karaoke bar, green space and more being built there!

Most of the development in the MHBPNA area has been over on the west side: we have the Tannery, Pharmacy, Breithaupt Block and other development going in. This is the first large scale development on the eastern side and promises to be a very positive influence for increasing property value and putting Kitchener on the map for quality residential condos. 

The real estate agent we talked with was very friendly and told us how the developer (Queensgate) had reached out to the local community and were committed to using local people for all phases of the project. The land used to have Breithaupt Tannery and Pannill Veneer on it. The buildings burned down and the land has been vacant for several years. It was fun for small scale mountain biking!

So many things about this development are positive. But it will certainly change the whole character of the surrounding neighbourhood. The MHBP area of Kitchener used to offer a great value for the first time home owner, but we have seen prices increase steadily over the past several years and this development will only contribute to further rises.

In Toronto the approval to develop condos is often tied to providing a certain number of affordable housing units, but not so in Kitchener/Waterloo. The LRT is spurring development and rising land prices along the King Street corridor, and this development will do the same further east. If you have $200,000 for a 640 square foot condo, then that is great. But if you would like to buy a half decent home for your family for under $250,000 you will have to look pretty hard (and probably somewhere outside of the MHBP neighbourhood).

So there are always different ways of looking at development. There are many positive elements to these plans and it is exciting that the value of downtown Kitchener is being realized. Our area is just not the "hidden bargain" it was a decade ago.