The one-time sleepy city of Chatham-Kent, population 103,000, deep in southwestern Ontario, has experienced substantial population growth in recent years, leading to new developments including a transformative highrise complex on the city’s north side.
The project at 770 St. Clair St. would bring hundreds of residential units to what has been simply a commercial strip leading north out of the city along Highway 40.
London, Ont.-based York Developments has submitted an official plan and zoning change proposal to what had been a 3.6-hectare site originally slated for a home improvement store. It was also once farmland. No cost has been announced and York did not respond to requests for comment.
The development would create a self-contained neighbourhood where residents could walk to nearby shops, big box stores, restaurants and a cinema complex.
The site is five kilometres from the city’s core but is served by a bus route. However, while the developer is planning extensive parking, there will also be pedestrian-focussed access to the local commercial buildings.
It “recognizes the car-oriented nature” of the city with additional parking to “not only support the planned residents of the building and patrons of the ground-floor commercial units, but will also support patrons of the existing commercial, eating establishment and cinema uses,” the planning justification report says.
Meanwhile it will create an “enhanced internal pedestrian and vehicle circulation network.” The connections would “contribute to a more extensive and safer pedestrian” experience.
The project would be in two phases.
Tower D with 209 units would be constructed first. Then the three other towers: Tower C, also with 209 units, and Towers A and B – across the street and central parking areas – with 178 units each. Altogether there would be 774 units.
Additionally, there would be 2,100-square-feet of commercial space on the ground floors and more than 1,000 underground and surface parking units.
City planning director Ryan Jacques said the city has recently “experienced sustained population growth not seen in decades.”
And since 2020 Chatham-Kent’s “urban form has changed with the completion of hundreds of apartment units, continued building of detached homes, and a growing interest in middle density housing.”
770 St. Clair fits the profile of “power centre-type commercial neighbourhoods” that have added “new housing options,” Jacques said.
Barbara McCaughrin, Chatham-Kent Association of Realtors president, likes the location.
“When you look at all the amenities surrounding these apartment buildings you don’t even have to own a vehicle, you can walk anywhere – to restaurants, to clothing stores, for groceries, for entertainment.”
And while it is some distance from downtown “unless you wanted to go to downtown it’s the same as anywhere else (but) it has all the local amenities.”
The towers match the tallest at 12 storeys currently in the city.
