City one step closer to elevating Pier 8 residential tower 45 storeys into the sky
The City, as land owner at Pier 8, has applied for an official plan amendment to allow for a 45-storey residential tower to be built on Block 16 (65 Guise St.) of the waterfront development project.
If it gets built it'll be one of the tallest buildings, at 147 metres, in the city. For world-renowned architect Bruce Kuwabara it could be the fulfilment of a career-long dream - to have designed an original landmark structure, not just in his home town, but in the very neighbourhood, the North End, where he grew up.
The OPA (official plan amendment) application, filed Dec. 1, sets in motion a rigorous public input and review process.
A tall tower building had been agreed to, among the design review committee stakeholders for the much-discussed Pier 8 development project, as a possible consideration in the plans. The application propels that consideration forward toward a test of approval, though, as manager of the municipal land development office Chris Phillips points out, it doesn't mean the City or council officially supports it.
There will be a lot of eyes on this," says Kuwabara, who grew up on Ferrie Street after his parents and family settled in Hamilton in the wake of the Japanese-Canadian internment during the Second World War. It should be a landmark tower. It would be a flagship, a beacon that can be seen from the Skyway Bridge, from Burlington and from the James North corridor."
Will it - a project of such height and magnitude - create a polarizing rift in the city, not to mention in the neighbourhood, as has been known to happen in Hamilton in recent decades over civic identity-defining issues?
There will be opposition, says Herman Turkstra. There are people who oppose high buildings, as a matter of course," and often for good reason, he explains.
This time, though, the opposition will not come from him or the Northend Neighbourhood Association of whose planning and traffic committee he is chair.
It (the tower) is a good thing," he says.
The association knew development was going to happen, one way or another, and so what it wanted to ensure is that the developers would be finding a way to get kids into the mediated settlement," agreed to at the end of the design review process for Pier 8. The idea dates back to the early 2000s and the Setting Sail land use plan for West Harbour.
Families and children have been critically important" to the thinking around what will happen with waterfront/North End development, says Turkstra. If there are children on Pier 8, the parents become involved, in schools (and parks and other community infrastructure), and they will develop friends on John Street (and surrounding areas), and that will keep Pier 8 as an integral part of the neighbourhood," not an enclave.
Without the tower, says Turkstra, there'd be too much intensification in the many six- to eight-story buildings that account for the vast majority of the 1,645 units envisioned in the agreed-upon Pier 8 plan. Too many single bedroom units with no room for kids and family, he says.
Kuwabara makes the same point in his case for the need for the tower. It releases single-unit pressure on the smaller buildings, fostering the more family-based orientation of the entire project.
Bill Curran, Hamilton architect and founder of PANERA (Progressive North End Residents' Association), has clashed with Turkstra in the past but he is as ardently in support of the tower.
It will dramatically raise the bar on design quality expectations," says Curran. We should expect more than the same old crappy building from the same old developers. This development is a game changer for Hamilton."
The tower, he adds, speaks to the spirit of the city's rejection of urban boundary expansion. Build in the city, up if necessary, to maximize infill and intensification in existing vacant and underutilized space like Pier 7 and 8."
Both Curran and Turkstra have praised Kuwabara's vision for the project. Kuwabara, founding partner of KPMB Architects in Toronto, has designed award-winning buildings all over the world. Curran calls him the most important Canadian architect of our time, full stop." He did the redesign of the Art Gallery of Hamilton but as yet hasn't put up an original building here.
The multi-firm team of architects he put together won the competition for the Pier 8 development.
Phillips says the building of the tower will require both a zoning and official plan amendment. The public will have a significant impact" through the review and approval process. Council is expected to decide on the tower proposal in the summer. Construction is not expected to begin on any of the building for another 18 months, he says.
Jeff Mahoney is a Hamilton-based reporter and columnist covering culture and lifestyle stories, commentary and humour for The Spectator. Reach him via email: jmahoney@thespec.com