Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimmy Stang
I wouldn't mind seeing another underpass or two (like the new one connecting the East Village to Victoria Park). Although I can only imagine that they're wildly expensive as well, but at least semi-realistic.
Question for the civic/skyscraper folk: Are there any zoning rules that would prohibit a massive office tower (like the Bow) from being constructed south of the tracks in the Beltline, Victoria Park, etc.? Are the CP tracks just a traditional border to "downtown" in people's minds, or is there something more to it?
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The old community of Victoria Park no longer exists, it's all Beltline from 14th Street to the Elbow River, and from the CPR tracks to 17th Avenue. I'd go into more detail but I think I'm pushing my luck with long posts with a pontificating tone in this thread. If anyone's interested in that conversation, I'd be happy to take it to PM.
The 11th Street West level crossing will likely be turned into an underpass eventually. There was also some musing during the conceptualization of Remington's Railtown development that there could be a +30 pedestrian overpass of the tracks at 6th Street East. There will also be an underground crossing of the tracks with the future SE/North Central Green line of the LRT.
Other than that, things become a lot more difficult due to existing ownership and land uses of the parcels on opposing sides of the tracks. There's been lots of musing about developments that might span the tracks, with sky bridges or atria at and above the +30 level.
Beltline Communities had also recently put forth the idea of a new underpass for bikes and pedestrians only (no automobiles) at 7th Street West. That idea didn't gain much traction unfortunately.
The new 4th Street SE underpass cost $70M but it was of course built much wider than the older ones.
You pretty much couldn't do the Bow in Beltline, but there's lots of room for sizable buildings. There is no height limit, with density being regulated by FAR (floor area ratio) limits, save for a couple areas with shadowing restrictions.
The maximum FAR you can achieve is 12.0, primarily in the area north of 12th Avenue and along the MacLeod Trail couplet corridor. That means that if you were to build a solid block of a building that took every bit of space of a parcel of land, it could be as high as 12 storeys. However, since no one really does this, buildings can certainly end up higher. You could have 70-80 storey thin pencil tower on a large parcel.
As an example, there is an upcoming development on the north side of 10th Avenue, between 4th and 5th Streets SW. If they were to max out their FAR, they could build a development with something around 850 000 sqft (they aren't proposing that much by the way), whereas the Bow is at 1.7 million sqft.