HAMILTON—Last November, long-time resident Donna Reid opened what many in Steeltown might find a really tough sell — a store celebrating all the great things past, present and future about Hamilton.

“I’d never lived in a city before where people seemed more focused on what we’d lost, rather than what we have,” says Reid, who moved to Hamilton 16 years ago after stints in Toronto, Quebec City and Calgary.

Her wonderfully eclectic James St. N. shop, The Hamilton Store, is just 600 square feet. But almost every inch of its walls are lined with photos, maps, artwork, books and memorabilia chronicling a city with a rich industrial past and a rapidly evolving future.

So it’s somewhat ironic that the store is just a short drive — or about a 12-block walk — down the street from sprawling waterfront parking lots and old warehouses that could soon become the heart of some of the biggest transformations Hamilton has seen in decades.

Of course, that’s assuming city officials can finally turn years of talk into action, and that developers don’t do what they’ve done so often in the past here, says Reid — tear down the old to make way for the new, only to later abandon their grand plans, leaving yet more empty lots and broken dreams in their wake.

“Hamilton is almost a laboratory of urban renewal right now,” says local architect David Premi. “We’re in a bona fide boom.

“There are many, many condominium projects on the table. We have a new GO Train station coming next year in time for the Pan Am Games. There are a lot of pieces being put into place that are really capturing the attention of developers, both inside and outside Hamilton.

“The waterfront is a critical part of that.”

The City of Hamilton is now in the final stages of preparing one of the last major stretches of urban waterfront in Southern Ontario — more than 18 hectares over two sprawling sites — for redevelopment.

In all, the city will spend about $39 million to transform two bayfront sites, some $13 million of that just in roads, sidewalks, sewers and other infrastructure to make the so-called West Harbour area in the city’s once-busy shipping port shovel-ready, says Chris Phillips, head of waterfront redevelopment for the city.

That $500 million, 10-hectare redevelopment is slated to include 1,600 residential units in condo towers no more than eight storeys high, as well as 13,000 square feet of retail, hotel and other commercial space aimed at creating a Halifax-style shopping, eating and living hub on edge of Hamilton Harbour, but within easy walking distance of the transforming downtown.

In time, the existing marine warehouses will likely be converted into shops and restaurants. And the 350-slip marina is slated to double in size with the aim of bringing people — and life — to a stretch of Hamilton waterfront that, until just a decade or so ago, was basically a no-go zone unless you were a member of the sailing or yacht club.

It will remain, in parts to the east of the site, very much a working port, with what steel factories remain continuing to belch smoke in the way that Redpath Sugar on Toronto’s waterfront unloads ships full of sugar in view of pricey waterfront condos.

As if the West Harbour revitalization plan wasn’t ambitious enough for a city relatively new to the condo development game, the City of Hamilton is determined to go to market at the very same time with another major waterfront-area project.

The so-called Barton-Tiffany lands are on a former industrial site that was originally acquired by the city for its Pan Am Games stadium.

Now that the facility is being built elsewhere, the city has proposed a new, eight-hectare live-work community in its place. The proposed condo towers, which have been scaled back to a maximum of eight storeys, would be steps from the city’s new GO Train station. The new neighbourhood would also connect via a pedestrian bridge, waterfront walkways and bike paths to the popular Bayfront Park area and the West Harbour redevelopment site just to the northeast.

For simplicity’s sake, think of the West Harbour site as a much smaller, and far less dense, version of Toronto’s mixed use, but predominantly residential, Harbourfront area — as much a place for downtown workers and downsizing baby boomers to live as a destination for locals and tourists.

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The Barton-Tiffany lands could be likened to Toronto’s railway lands development: CN Rail shunting lines, as well as the main CN and GO Train tracks, now run along the shoreline at the north end of site. That means any condo, office or retail development would simply overlook the harbour rather than be right on the water.

There are hopes that, in time, many of those rail lines will be moved elsewhere, with the exception of the main CN and GO lines, says Phillips, allowing residents of the new neighbourhood, on what are now overgrown blocks of razed former factories, easier access to the developing waterfront.

“This really is one of those blank canvases — a landmark setting, adjacent to a downtown, where you can really make a statement,” says Phillips.

The city expects to seek requests for proposals from developers in the next year or so and hopes to see the bulk of construction underway by 2018.

“This is quite unique in that the city is putting all the dominoes in a row (by paying to have infrastructure in place upfront) so it’s ready for the (development) industry to take over.”

Already the sites, particularly the West Harbour lands, are drawing the interest of GTA developers looking for the next condo boom.

That includes veteran builders such as Frank Giannone, president of FRAM Building Group, whose company has already transformed the shorelines of Port Credit and Collingwood from moribund industrial uses to thriving destination residential and retail communities.

“Hamilton is one of the strongest real estate markets in the country because it’s still affordable,” said Giannone in a telephone interview. “We definitely have an interest in it. We think there is a great opportunity to transform the waterfront in the way we have in Port Credit.”

The big challenge, says architect David Premi, will be ensuring that there is adequate density — enough new condos appealing to young professionals, a new generation of downtown dwellers and baby boomers looking for an alternative to the house — to create bustling streets, busy stores and talked-about restaurants that help the city build on the rejuvenation happening downtown.

“We have an enormous opportunity to rebuild the city in a really great, sustainable way right now. The momentum is building and the talent and will is there,” says Premi.

“We could either blow it or we could get it right. But there a lot of things falling into place that are indicating we’re going to get it right.”

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