How high is too high on Barrie’s skyline?
The first of two Debut Waterfront Residences towers on Dunlop Street West is mostly built, to a height of 32 storeys, but not everyone loves the view.
“The Debut building is an eyesore to me as I drive from south Barrie to north Barrie, and I felt compelled to say so,” said Roger Kinch, a Barrie resident for a dozen years.
Retired from a career in sales, he lives in a single-family home near the city’s north end. Kinch says he can’t see Debut from his home and admits he knows little about waterfront development, but is surprised the Debut condos were approved.
“(It’s) such an ugly building that looks like it's designed to have portions topple over,” said the local senior. “The words ‘aesthetic appeal’ don't apply in any way but negatively to this building. It has ‘transformed’ the Barrie skyline, but not ‘impressively.'”
Kinch just doesn’t like the view.
“(It’s an) ugly building that I am forced to look at when driving north on Lakeshore Drive,” he said. “I know it's too late to do anything about it now. I believe the height of condos in that area should match the current lakeshore condo height, to be in keeping with the established surrounding area.”
Debut condos is a mixed-use, highrise development consisting of two 32-storey residential towers, totalling 495 units in two phases at 55 Dunlop St. W., between Maple and Mary streets.
This includes a six-storey podium, with ground-floor retail/commercial uses and parking on levels two through six. The development includes a pedestrian arcade that will connect its Dunlop Street front with the existing Barrie Transit bus terminal and the city’s waterfront.
Foundation work is already underway for the twin Debut condo tower right beside the existing tower.
Chelen Mast manages Higher Grounds coffeehouse, right at the corner of Mary and Dunlop streets. She’s of two minds about the Debut project.
“It’s going to be good for the downtown, for sure,” she said, “but it is big and cumbersome. I really don’t like big buildings, that’s my personal opinion.”
Higher Grounds, which has been open for five years, is connected to the nearby Ministry of Hope City Church, open for eight years.
“More customers, yeah, maybe,” she said of Debut’s effect on the coffeehouse business. “It’s kind of a rough area. This will maybe clean up the area. We’ll see.”
Tony Nguni, from Hip-Hop Nails at 69 Dunlop St. W., has been there for 20 years and is taking Debut in stride.
“I don’t think we have a choice,” he said of its construction. “It is big … I’ll be happy when they get it done and we can get on with it. Hopefully in the future it will bring more business, more traffic in people and cars in the area as well.
"But I think it will bring in good people, bad people as well.”
Nguni said his concerns for downtown Barrie involve homelessness and people struggling with drug addiction.
Coun. Craig Nixon, who represents the downtown as part of Ward 2, said he’s heard many comments about the Debut building’s design, with the majority being positive.
“Personally, I think it is a great design which will allow better views of the lake from various angles,” he said. “Yes, it certainly stands out, but if you look at what is coming over the next few years, it will fit in nicely to the skyline of the city.
“This project is a major step in the revitalization of our downtown core, and I look forward to its completion,” Nixon added.
Debut Waterfront Residences officials did not respond for a request for comment.
More tall buildings are also coming to downtown Barrie.
HIP Developments’ plans for the former Barrie Central Collegiate site are, at last look, being reconsidered. Rezoning of more than seven acres of land, at the former high school site, was approved by city council in late 2022. This was needed to build two residential apartment buildings, of 29 and 25 storeys, with 276 and 228 units, plus a shared six-storey podium, of 119 units, for a total of 623 residences.
City planners are waiting for the submission of a site-plan application for the former Barrie Central site, located at 34, 36, 38, 40, 44 and 50 Bradford St., near the corner of Dunlop Street West and Bradford Street.
The property is part of a larger parcel of land that was the old Barrie Central Collegiate, including the former Red Storey Field and the former Prince of Wales Elementary School. These old school sites have been largely demolished, although the shell of the Prince of Wales structure remains.
Just across the road, SmartCentres (Greenwin Barrie) received site-plan control, with conditions, for its first phase of residential development at 51-75 Bradford St. and 20 Checkley St.
That first phase of this project is to be 25 storeys, 230 rental apartment units, 145 hotel suites, a restaurant and an environmental protection area, along with a temporary parking lot on property to be the development’s second phase. It was essentially approved by the previous city council in June 2021.
And in the previous January, council rezoned and redesignated — an Official Plan change — these same 8.6 acres so towers of 41, 38, 35 and 25 storeys high could be built by SmartCentres, with a total of about 1,700 residential units, hotel rooms and commercial space.
“I am not aware of any updates or timelines of construction,” Nixon said of the two projects. “Hopefully sooner than later.”
