Negotiations underway for ‘Post Loft’ developer to take over downtown Oshawa parking lot

The unofficial negotiations between a Toronto-based developer with deep ties to Oshawa and the city about the acquisition of a downtown municipal parking lot can now be called ‘official’ after the lot was declared ‘surplus’ November 4.

Oshawa Council and Atria Developments agreed to “enter into negotiations” in June to use the city parking lot south of Athol Street for tenants in an eight-storey, 193-unit project to be built above the former Canada Post building across the street.

Those talks were only preliminary as Oshawa had not yet declared the lot – as well as its air and underground rights – surplus to the city’s needs.

That hurdle has now been cleared and Atria President Hans Jain, who could not reveal any other details, acknowledged that his company is currently negotiating with the city.

“There’s a need for parking.”

Atria has been working on providing parking for the building since the Post Lofts proposal was first floated, as its location precludes building underground. A request to use the city lot across the street (between Celina Street and Albert Street) – and likely building a parking garage on top – was presented to the City earlier this year.

Atria has hired renowned architectural firm Moriyama Teshima – company co-founder, the late Raymond Moriyama, created iconic buildings like the Ontario Science Centre, the Canadian Embassy in Tokyo, the Toronto Reference Library and Ottawa’s Canadian War Museum – to fuse the striking former Oshawa Federal Building and Post Office (built between 1953-54 in the Art Moderne style) with contemporary loft interiors and a range of amenities “perfect for generation next.”

The eight-storey apartment building will be built on top of the existing two-storey former post office, with the building linked – it is hoped – to the parking structure across the street.

Design work on the project, which has a completion date of 2027, is well underway, Jain said. “We’ve progressed quite a bit.”

There’s “lots to do” on the building, he added, calling the project the “greenest residential project in Canada” as well as the largest mass timber project west of B.C.

“We want to break ground on this next year.”

Jain, who has five projects on the go in the city (including four downtown), said the good relationship his firm has with staff and council has him optimistic of a deal being made.

“We hope it can be resolved,” Jain told INdurham, adding that in addition to retaining the façade, his company has also promised to preserve the large ‘Canada’ crest at the building’s entrance off Simcoe Street. “It’s a very special place.”

With other residential projects in various stages of development, Jain and Atria have been quite busy in the city of late. The massive redevelopment of the Oshawa Clinic site (1,700 units) is on schedule, a 670-unit project at 75 Richmond St. E (‘Beyond’) is also on the go, and there is construction happening at the ‘Neo’ development, which has a completion date of 2026.

Atria Developments has been on a “mission to illuminate urban neighbourhoods” for the past quarter-century, and Jain himself has been coming to Oshawa to work since the shovels hit the ground at Parkwood Residences more than 20 years ago.

Parkwood, a former office building that was being offered in a tax sale, became the company’s first project in Oshawa and the first condo development in the downtown in decades when it welcomed its first of 120 residents in 2007.

“People said it wouldn’t work but we made it work,” Jain said of the 1970s-era building, which was slated to become a surface parking lot when Atria purchased the property. “The retrofit was a lot of work but I think we did an amazing thing.”

Parkwood was the first of many projects Atria has been involved with in Oshawa in the ensuing years, including the 12-storey 100 Bond (2017) and 19-storey 80 Bond (2022) which now tower over the city’s rapidly rising skyline.

“I think our growth is very consistent and that gives confidence moving forward,” Jain said. “We are very happy with the direction and the way things are happening in downtown Oshawa.”

“It’s going to change the downtown. We’re really banking on it.”

‘Beyond’ project on Richmond St. E.