Anglican Diocese Approves Moving Forward with 8-Storey Mixed-Use Building Behind James North Cathedral – TPR Hamilton | Hamilton's Civic Affairs News Site

May 23, 2015
The Anglican Diocese of Niagara’s – headquartered at the Cathedral on James Street North – Synod approved moving forward with a multi-million redevelopment of their Cathedral grounds at 252-254 James Street North and 270 Hughson Street North.
The plan, which is still in early stages, proposes a eight storey mixed use building in the rear of the property facing onto Hughson Street.
Revenue from the condo portion of the development will fund the operations of Cathedral Place including restoration of the heritage-designated Cathedral and school house facade
Below are details on the project first reported by The Public Record editor Joey Coleman in September.
The following was originally posted to JoeyColeman.ca on September 14, 2014
(DISCLOSURES: I pay market rent for my office space in a building partially owned by the architect.
I’m on the Beasley Neighbourhood Association Planning Advisory Group which will review this file in the coming months. I reside in the Beasley Neighbourhood.)
Hamilton’s new building boom is seeing the Anglican Cathedral proposing an interesting mixed-use 8 storey building on the rear portion of their property and a neighbouring City of Hamilton municipal parking lot.
The development at 252-254 James Street North & 207 Hughson Street North was reviewed by the internal City staff group known as the Development Review Team.
DRT is the first preliminary step in the planning process. Developers approach the City with early concepts and receive feedback from various City divisions regarding the proposal. This serves to give developers the opportunity to change their plans to better conform with City and Provincial planning policies.
Once a planning file reaches DRT, it becomes a public document. At this early stage, information in the file is limited and very preliminary.
The planned type of residential – rental or condo, market or mixed – is not included in the file yet. (This is not required at DRT)
Primarily fronting onto Hughson Street, the floor plans show the first level has having a commercial focus, with the existing Cathedral day care centre remaining. There will be a “double heigh glass atrium” connecting the two heritage buildings on the Cathedral grounds which will run from James Street to Hughson Street.
There are plans for an courtyard (which appears to be outdoors) in the setback space betweent the new building and Cathedral.
Parking will be underground with 53 parking spaces planned, including the requirement to replace the City’s parking spots.
The following concept floor plans were submitted to the City (click to open docs), and are in the planning file.
A friendly reminder that the plans are in the early stages at DRT, and will be subject to change based upon City requirements and public feedback
In May 2014, Ward 2 Councillor Jason Farr successfully passed a motion at City Council to authorize the sale of an undisclosed municipal parking lot to a planned development.
Officially, Councillor Farr is not allowed to disclose the surplus parking lot and the City will not confirm if they’ve agreed to sell the parking lot this development seeks to build upon.
The street address of 207 Hughson Street North is registered to the City of Hamilton as the address of its 1710 square metre parking.
Councillor Farr, in May, stated his hope the development of a City parking – with replacement parking built as part of a structure – will encourage the City to sell other parking lots to create increased vibrancy (and property taxes) in the Downtown Core.
The architects on the project are david premi Architects Inc.
David Premi, Principal of the firm, revealed a rendering of the project on Friday, September 12 at a PechaKucha talk as part of Supercrawl.
I recorded the entire event, and here’s a frame capture of the rendering:
See Architect David Premi’s mention of the project at 1:10:40 of this video
There is no timeline for the next stages of the planning process, with Council’s Planning Committee recessed for three-and-a-half months, it’s unlikely we’ll see this at Planning Committee until late winter or early spring.
The project will now be reviewed by the City’s Design Review Panel, l expect this will occur in October or November.
I’ll keep an eye on this file and update accordingly.