It’s a question which literally looms over downtown Barrie.
Why are the massive Debut condominiums being built along Dunlop Street West, while other residential developments are stalled, or at best receiving lip service?
Gary Silverberg of Debut Condos says its Barrie project is an outlier.
“Nobody’s building right now. Nobody else,” he told BarrieToday. “The economic environment is not conducive to it.”
Silverberg lists a number of reasons why residential building is not happening elsewhere, from high interest rates and development charges to taxes and the climbing cost of construction.
“Construction costs … have gone up 40 per cent,” he said. “I wouldn’t doubt that number.”
Debut Condos is a mixed-use, highrise development consisting of two 32-storey residential towers, totalling 495 units in two phases at 55 Dunlop St. W., between Maple and Mary streets.
This includes a six-storey podium, with ground-floor retail/commercial uses and parking on levels two through six. The development includes a pedestrian arcade that will connect the Dunlop Street frontage with the existing transportation terminal and waterfront.
Foundation work is already underway for the twin Debut condo tower.
Its site plan was registered Oct. 18, 2021, and Silverberg said the first tower could be ready for occupancy in early 2025.
Other residential developments aren’t so far along.
At last check, HIP Developments’ plans for the former Barrie Central Collegiate (BCC) site are being reconsidered. Rezoning of more than seven acres of land, at the former BCC site, was approved by city council in late 2022.
This rezoning was needed to build two residential apartment buildings, of 29 and 25 storeys, with 276 and 228 units, plus a shared six-storey podium, of 119 units, for a total of 623 residences.
But city planners have been awaiting the submission of a site-plan application for the former high school site, located at 34, 36, 38, 40, 44 and 50 Bradford St., near the corner of Dunlop West and Bradford Street.
This development was to be built in phases, with what was proposed most recently as the first phase.
City planning staff have said no designated affordable residential units had been proposed for this development, but that its housing supply would be at market rates.
The property is part of a larger parcel of land that was the old Barrie Central Collegiate, including the former Red Storey Field and the former Prince of Wales Elementary School. These old school sites have been largely demolished.
As for SmartCentres (Greenwin Barrie), it’s three years and counting for their tower project.
That’s how long ago this huge residential project received site-plan control for its first phase at 51-75 Bradford St. and 20 Checkley St. in downtown Barrie. It remains unbuilt.
That first phase of this project is to be 25 storeys, 230 rental apartment units, 145 hotel suites, a restaurant and an environmental protection area, along with a temporary parking lot on property to be the development’s second phase. It was essentially approved by the previous city council in June 2021.
And in the previous January, council rezoned and redesignated (an Official Plan change) these same 8.6 acres so towers of 41, 38, 35 and 25 storeys high could be built by SmartCentres, with a total of about 1,700 residential units, hotel rooms and commercial space.
