KITCHENER —Momentum Developments is planning the biggest condominium project yet for the central part of the city.

The site is the location of the former Dominion Bakery at 110 Victoria St. S. and two houses adjacent to it. It will be just a few minutes walk from the Communitech Hub at the Tannery and the future light rail transit line.

The Waterloo-based developer wants to construct two decks of underground parking, retail units and office space on the ground floor with residential units above. In all, the $60-million to $70-million project will contain about 250 units on 15 to 18 floors.

"We are still kind of ironing out that number," said Brian Prudham, a partner and principal at Momentum.

Momentum will demolish a few buildings along that stretch of Victoria Street, from addresses 98 to 110. The new development's address will be 100 Victoria St. S.

After completing three developments in downtown Waterloo — The 42, The Red Condominium and the BPR Lofts — Momentum turned its attention to downtown Kitchener. It bought the property at King and Victoria streets and started construction last year on a building called One Victoria.

The strong sales at One Victoria prompted the developer to start assembling land and begin negotiations with the City of Kitchener for another condo at 100 Victoria St. The only marketing so far for the new project was some promotion on the construction boarding around the One Victoria site.

"Our registrations have been even stronger than One Victoria," Prudham said. "We are pretty pleased about that, no doubt."

Almost all of the 207 units in One Victoria are sold. There is nothing available in that project for less than $350,000. All of the studio, one bedroom and one-bedroom-plus-den units are sold.

"You look at the success of that project in terms of sales and we had to come with a followup," Prudham said.

The decision to build at 100 Victoria is a no-brainer because it is so close to the technology cluster at the Tannery, the future light rail transit line and Victoria Park, Prudham said.

"We are planning a large office component in this one, which is unique for us, but we think it calls for it in this space," Prudham said.

The office space will be marketed to tech companies.

"We will have a significant retail piece, too," Prudham said.

The people buying Momentum units in downtown Kitchener are from two demographics — young professionals who want to work and live in the core, and empty-nesters selling their homes in the suburbs and moving downtown.

The plans for 100 Victoria should be filed with the City of Kitchener in about three months. Many more months of site-plan negotiations will follow. Construction will not begin until sometime in 2015. The first occupants will move in sometime in 2016, about a year before the first light rail trains roll through downtown Kitchener.

Light rail transit and the new multi-modal central station at King and Victoria streets figure large in Momentum's reasons for building in that area. Proximity to transit plays an enormous role in the appeal of the condo sites, Prudham said.

"Typically our site selection process starts with proximity to employment, amenity and public transit," Prudham said. "So one of the first questions we ask is: 'How close is the nearest LRT platform?' "

The 100 Victoria project is near the outer edge of the Innovation District — that part of downtown that is within 600 metres of the future multi-modal transit station. Kitchener's economic development strategy said that district has the potential and space for 15,000 new jobs and 4,000 new residents by 2031.

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Rod Regier, the city's head of economic development, said Momentum's new project is another great sign of confidence in the downtown and the Innovation District.

"We are now starting to see a medium-high density, pedestrian-oriented and transit-supported city emerge in the centre of Waterloo Region," Regier said.

"It's giving us the ability to compete in the creative economy with Global cities," he said.