GREEN seems to be the 'in' colour these days. And it's the focus of two brand-new condominium projects currently in the works.
Dobie Properties Ltd. and Prairie Architects have paired up to produce two exciting new condos. Both projects share the common theme of being environment-friendly, but are vastly different in location and style. One is a fourplex located in St. Boniface and the other is a church-to-condo conversion project in the North End.
The Parish Hall Loft Condominiums will feature six condos ranging in price from $179,500 to $335,875.
Cameron Dobie of Dobie Properties Ltd. is the builder and developer behind the two projects.
"These are our first condominium projects," Dobie admits. "We've always had an interest in building and doing things that are green and sustainable."
Dobie set out to find locations that would be suitable for some pilot projects to build new, yet sustainable housing projects. The ideal was to find an existing site that could be redeveloped.
"We were interested in redeveloping and rebuilding -- essentially building green," says Dobie. "We were not interested in going to the suburbs."
The quest for infill lots resulted in two very different finds -- an old church in the North End and a single lot in St. Boniface. Located at 181 Church Ave., the Parish Hall for St. John's has sat vacant for several years and was underused for many more. Now the old church, which sits at the corner of Church Avenue and Main Street and was built in the 1890s, will be transformed into six new condominiums.
Cameron Dobie, president of Dobie Properties.
The Parish Hall Loft Condominiums will feature a half-dozen condos ranging in size from 820 square feet to 1,560 square feet. Dobie says the units will have a contemporary feel, but will embrace the building's character and heritage as well.
"From the exterior it is our intent to keep the historical building," he says. "It will have a more contemporary, open feel on the inside and we will maintain the integrity of the church outside."
Dobie's crew is in the process of cleaning out the interior of the church to salvage what they can. The plan is to maintain and restore all of the exposed timber trusses and reuse the original birch hardwood floors. An original stamped-tin ceiling will also be preserved.
With nine-foot ceilings, the upper units will feature a loft master bedroom with exposed timber ceiling. The lower units will have an exterior patio that will be built about four feet below grade to maintain privacy for the outside space.
"For people that really appreciate interesting design and architecture this will be a really great space for them," says Dobie.
Construction on the church project is set to begin as soon as possible, likely by mid-October. The condominiums are expected to be complete in late spring or early summer. Despite their North End location, the church condos are not a bargain. Priced between $179,500 and $335,875, or roughly $200 per square foot, the condo units are priced competitively with other new condominiums in the Princess Street and Exchange District areas.
It will be a challenge to market the condos, acknowledges Claude Davis of Royal LePage Dynamic, who is marketing both of Dobie's green condo projects. The challenge is location, because he says most people shopping for a condo wouldn't look in that area. But he's confident the condos will sell as the concept of building green in residential is quite new, but appealing.
"Are we pushing the ceiling a little bit?" Davis asks. "Yes, but I think it will work."
Recycling and reusing is a big part of building green. In the case of the church project, it's a matter of taking an old building and refurbishing it using original materials. All of the asbestos has been removed and the builder is in the process of checking the rest of the building for things like lead paint and other contaminants. The original stamped tin ceiling is even being removed to be cleaned, refurbished and then re-installed.
The idea is deconstruction and then rebuilding rather than a straight tear down and rebuild.
Condo owners will als be restricted to using only natural materials and products that are considered green. Dobie says that might mean using limestone from the Gillis quarry for a patio rather than brick imported from Italy. The less distance the product has to travel, the better.
The Horace Street project is a different sort of condominium altogether. Still focusing on the green theme, the plan is to build a two-and-a-half-storey fourplex on one infill site.
"What we have is something quite unique," says Dudley Thompson of Prairie Architects, who designed both condo projects. "That is, trying to get four units on one lot." One of the principles behind the design of the townhouse-style, St. Boniface project is that each condo unit will have its own front and back entrance, as well as access to its own private yard.
"Because the lots are small, we wanted to look at a green roof," says Thompson. "Each condo will have access to its own roof deck."
There will also be a centre atrium in the middle of the fourplex, which will have a very urban, contemporary feel and an open plan. The four condo units will each be 1,415 square feet and are designed to be either two- or three-bedroom homes.
As for being green, the Horace project is just that. Features like geothermal heat and double-studded exterior walls with an R-50 insulation value are standard in these condominiums. Even the exterior of the building is green. The brick exterior will be constructed from reclaimed bricks from an old house on Harvard Avenue in Crescentwood.
Deconstruction is set to begin on the existing building on Horace Street in the next couple of weeks, with the fourplex ready for possession by next spring. Each of the four suites will be priced at $295,000.
While developer Dobie says they haven't done much in terms of marketing the project, he says interest has been very good as far as sustainability goes.
"A lot of people feel this is the way building is going in the future," Dobie notes. "That's the way we feel and we want to be at the forefront of the construction."
tbryksa@mts.net
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