‘Best site’ rises in Kensington
Bucci Developments launches 115-unit, inner-city Ven project
The land deal took only minutes. At 4:30 p.m. on a Friday, a realtor called Mike Bucci of Bucci Developments Ltd. to tell him about a new listing. By 5:10 p.m., Bucci had submitted an offer on an 11-home parcel of land in Kensington.
“I took one look at the location and said, ‘This is it — this is the one. Don’t dither, just get it,’ ” says Bucci of the move that beat out a dozen other offers overnight.
“Modern urban planning likes to put multi-family on busy streets. It’s extremely rare that we get to be on a tree-lined street in an established residential neighbourhood that’s very quiet, yet still have all the benefits of being a two-minute walk to the LRT, four-minute walk to the Safeway, all the restaurants and shops of Kensington, and all the nice jobs nearby.
“It’s really the best site we’ve ever built — even compared to Vancouver.”
Bucci is vice-president of development for the company, which is a Vancouverbased builder of multi-family homes.
Multi-family is often pushed to the side of a neighbourhood to shade single-family houses from traffic noise, he says.
“This is a real treat,” Bucci says of the location backing onto McHugh Bluff. The project will be called Ven.
There will be 115 units in Ven, including offerings of one-bedroom units, along with one-bedroom-plus-den, two-bedroom and two-bedroom-plus-den units. They will range from 645 to 1,350 square feet.
General prices start at $279,000, but further details are being worked out as construction costs come in.
The wood-frame, fourfloor building will offer the highest-end finishes of Bucci’s most recent Calgary projects, Next and Tribeca — including marble and quartzite countertops, air-conditioning in the prestige corner units, and at least nine-foot ceilings on the first three floors, with 14-foot ceilings on the fourth floor.
It will be constructed to the silver level of BuiltGreen Canada, a voluntary program that promotes eco-friendly and sustainable housing.
The units will have oversized balconies, with the corner units offering 650-square-foot balconies. “Because of the location, the outdoor space in this project is very important,” says Bucci.
It was the surprise of how impressively tall the ceilings really are in Bucci’s projects that took Michael Gauthier and Betty Ly by surprise.
They recently did a first walk-through of their new condo in Next, a 132unit condo project Bucci is just wrapping up in Bridgeland.
“We knew that the ceilings were going to be higher being on the top floor, but they’re 14foot ceilings in the main room,” says Gauthier. “We thought that was amazing.”
Possessions will begin in March.
Gauthier, 28, and girlfriend Ly, 24, bought a one-bedroom condo just under 700 square feet within their price range of $275,000 to $300,000.
The condo fees will be $200 per month. The unit comes with one parking stall, with the option to buy a second stall.
“We’re really excited to be able to get the process started of moving into our first home together,” says Gauthier, who works for Canada Post.
Ly “just started an accounting job downtown” and she is articling to become a chartered accountant, “so she really wanted to be somewhere close to work,” says Gauthier.
“We agreed on getting a condo downtown. We looked everywhere, but we really thought that what we got in Next was the best value, the best price per square foot.”
The size of the condo suits their current situation.
“We really liked the setup of the condo,” says Gauthier.
“The space is going to be sufficient for us right now. We’re just a young couple, with no kids and no pets. We really liked the image that the Next condo had. “This property will probably be our home for the next three to five years, and then we’ll look to have renters. By that time, my girlfriend will be that much more established in what she’s doing — and, hopefully, I’ll have my main project of owning my own gym set up within that time.
“From there, we’ll be set – we’ll have our beautiful house wherever we want to set it up.
With Ven, many of those factors that are attractive about Next’s loca- tion are intensified — proximity to transit, to downtown jobs to the south or studies at SAIT Polytechnic to the north, to the lifestyle of restaurants and coffee shops in Kensington, and the setting of an established inner-city neighbourhood.
“Because of the location and prestige, we’re targeting the young active urban professional,” says Bucci.
“The corner units will have a very strong demand from snowbirds and downsizers. With the energy of Kensington, it will get some of the interest of the first-time homebuyers.”
There will be “quite a large scope of people” among potential buyers, says Bucci, adding “that’s what Kensington is.”
And in a unique way to mark its entrance to the neighbourhood, Bucci is planning to hold an artwalk in the old homes before they are torn down.
“An artist is going to take over each home and do a display of some sort — and for 30 days make this an artwalk,” he says, adding that two of the existing tenants are artists and put forth the suggestion.
Bucci says the street will remain tree-lined. The company has proposed to city officials a plan to enhance the nearby playground with upgraded playground structures and add an adultoriented fitness gym.
Construction on Ven will likely commence in late spring, with a completion date of February 2015.
The 4,000-square-foot presentation centre is readying to open at 2nd Avenue and 10th Street N.W. above the Broken Plate restaurant. Sales will launch at the end of February, although registration is currently being taken online with price incentives for the VIP release.