BURLINGTON HOTEL REDEVELOPMENT ON THE WATERFRONT

NRU
June 14, 2017
Dominik Matusik

An important waterfront site at the end of the Brant Street strip in downtown Burlington may soon be transformed. However, the community is concerned that a high-rise development could jeopardize public access to the waterfront and linkages to the adjacent city park.

Hotel owner Vrancor Group is seeking to redevelop and intensify its site at 2020 Lakeshore Road, which is currently home to the Waterfront Hotel, a sevenstorey structure built in 1986. However, Burlington mayor Rick Goldring told NRU that the community has raised serious concerns about the proposed development and public access to the waterfront.

“There’s a lot of different views on the site,” Goldring says. “What we’ve heard so far is certainly  oncern about development. There’s concern about the potential height of the development and a lot of people would prefer nothing goes there. Other people are supportive of some sort of mid-rise development but, certainly, the vast majority of people want public access on the space.”

Vrancor floated the idea of two towers—35 and 40 storeys—on the site during a recent public meeting, heights which would be unprecedented in Burlington. Goldring says it is unrealistic to think a tower of that height would ever be built at that location. The community’s main concerns revolve around public access and connectivity to the waterfront and Goldring wants to explore the idea of the city acquiring the property for parkland.

“There’s no question about [the community preferring low-rise development]. I would refer no redevelopment takes place. The community is not crying out here for redevelopment. The interest is purely from the owner of the property... This is a premier Lake Ontario waterfront site in the GTA and I think we want to be really careful about what we do here.”

Burlington planning and building director Mary Lou Tanner told NRU that it is realistic to expect some form of development to occur on the site, but staff has yet to determine what form that should take.

“I think it’s fair to say that the owner wants tall towers. We have not landed on whether we would be recommending any form of development yet. It’s too early in the process,” she says.

The site’s previous owner, Travelodge, had also intended to redevelop it, leading council to pass a site-specific official plan amendment in 2006, requiring an extensive community consultation process before any redevelopment could take place.

Burlington special business area coordinator Todd Evershed says that Vrancor has been active in the city’s public engagement process.

“We’ve had a preconsultation meeting with the owner, but this was prior to us initiating this process. We have an understanding of what [Vrancor] would like to see on the site, but we’re also moving along with the process and [Vrancor has] been active in the process to date and we hope they’ll continue to be.”

The city will be holding a public design session for the site on July 5.

Representatives from Vrancor Group were unavailable for comment before deadline.