Google expansion
Breithaupt Block hopes to add 12-storey tower
KITCHENER — The showcase Breithaupt Block, headquarters of Google’s Canadian development team, is looking to almost double its office space with a proposed third phase that includes a 12-storey office tower across the street from the award-winning development.
The office complex, which would include a five-storey parking garage with a sixth level of parking underground, as well as street-level stores along Breithaupt, would roughly double the office space in the Breithaupt Block.
The proposal is on a cluster of five parcels of land totalling about 1.5 hectares on Moore Avenue between Wellington and Breithaupt streets, across the street from the Google building.
The developers are hoping to build on the success of the first two phases of the Breithaupt Block, which includes the four-storey brick-and-beam redevelopment of a former rubber factory at 51 Breithaupt St. and a five-storey “glass box” building at 25 Breithaupt St.
Those two buildings are 100 per cent leased, said Craig Beattie, a partner with Perimeter Development Corp., which is developing the block as a joint venture with
Allied REIT. “We are now looking ahead to Phase 3 opportunities, given the success of what we’ve completed to date.”
Kitchener is riding a wave of increased interest from developers, who are putting in proposals not only for extensive residential complexes in the city’s core, but also significant expansion of upscale office space.
“There is momentum,” said Brian Bennett, Kitchener’s manager of business development. “People are excited about what’s happening downtown right now and they absolutely want to be part of it.”
Perimeter is “quite bullish” on the prospects for developments in Kitchener and its downtown, Beattie said. The Breithaupt Block’s location is ideal, he said. “We’re within 200 metres of the future nexus of transportation coming together with GO (trains), Via (Rail), buses and LRT.”
Bennett didn’t want to put a dollar figure on the project since it’s in the early planning stages, but said it would likely be at least double what Perimeter is spending on another downtown project at 345 King. St. W., which is pegged at $43 million.
There is an increased market locally for high-quality office space, Beattie said, especially with a sizable floor footprint.
Perimeter has hired Martin Simmons Architects, which designed the first phase of the Breithaupt Block, and is aiming for a similarly high-quality design for this phase. “It’s important for us,” he said. “We live in the city. We work in the city.”
“We’re excited,” Beattie said. “We’ve spent a lot of time on lots of different design iterations.”
The design includes a distinctive entrance with exposed structural pillars rising four storeys over a broad patio, and a glass and brick building with several outdoor terraces.
The first phase of the Breithaupt Block is one of only a handful of buildings in Canada with LEED v4 certification, which recognizes excellence in green building design. Beattie said Perimeter intends to seek Gold LEED certification for Phase 3.
The new tower will add considerably to the stock of centrally located office space, with 292,000 square feet of office space. That’s about equivalent to the office space in the first two phases of the Breithaupt block and slightly more than is planned for the massive Sixo Midtown development on the other side of King Street, which is expected to add 227,000 square feet of office space, as well as four residential towers.
The proposed Breithaupt Block 3 includes 651 parking spaces, about 9,500 square feet of retail space at street level along Breithaupt Street, and a small park at Moore and Wellington that would be privately owned and maintained but available for public use. The park would act as a transition between the office tower and the adjacent low-rise residential neighbourhood.
The proposal would need permission for greater density, as well as Official Plan and zoning changes; part of the land is zoned to allow light industrial uses, but parcels on Wellington are zoned for low-rise residential. Those types of approvals, as well as site plan approval, typically take up to 18 months, said Garett Stevenson, the city planner handling the file. If approved, construction might take another two years.
The city has just begun public consultations on the project, and is encouraging people to comment on the proposal by Oct. 20. Details are on the city’s website at kitchener.ca — just put “planning news” in the search window.
The transition to the adjacent neighbourhood is likely to be a key consideration for the city, Stevenson said. “We want to see a development that is compatible and complimentary to the surrounding area,” he said. “We want to make sure the two uses will work well together.”
The surge of interest and investment in the downtown and nearby Midtown areas are a result of a decade’s worth of investment by the region and the city, both Bennett and Stevenson said. Those investments brought the LRT, a renewed King Street and helped attract the Wilfrid Laurier graduate school of social work and the University of Waterloo’s pharmacy school.
Bennett predicts the Breithaupt Block won’t be the last high-quality office development proposed for the downtown. “We’re definitely going to see more if the demand is there to fill those buildings,” he said. And by all appearances, he said, the demand “is growing. Absolutely.”