The skyline of Regina’s downtown could soon change.
A third Hill Tower on the northwest corner at 12th Avenue and Hamilton Street has been given the go-ahead by the Planning Commission. The project will be built if it is approved on Monday by city council. Completion of the project is slated for late 2012.
Long-time businesses in the area have since moved out to make way for the brand new 20-story office tower by Harvard Developments, which is hoping to fill a critical shortage of office space.
“The economy is doing well, and we’re responding to that need and thrilled to be able to do it in Saskatchewan,” said Rosanne Hill Blaisdell from Harvard.
The final plan has overcome serious challenges. It has taken several trips to the drawing board for Harvard. One big issue was how office towers cause winds. Harvard had the choice to either follow the bylaw and move the building back from the street or change the design and pay a $400,000 penalty. In the end, they chose the fine.
“The changes came with building articulation and the design, the addition of large scale canopies, glass canopies,” Hill Blaisdell said.
Upwards of 900 people will work in the building when it is completed. There will be 50 underground parking stalls and 140 in a nearby parkade. There are concerns about where people are going to park in an area of the city which is already tough enough to find parking.
“Many of those tenants are high users of public transit space,” Hill Blaisdell said. “We’ve done our analysis and the city has worked with us very hard on that, and we’re very, very confident there will not be an additional pressure on parking.”
The chair of the Regina Planning Commission said Reginans have to understand parking is sparse in downtown Regina, whether or not the new building is completed.
“We need to understand that we have a concentration of retail and office space downtown,” Michael Fougere said. “You can’t always park in front of where you want to go. It just simply isn’t possible.”
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