CAMBRIDGE — There’s a change underway in old Galt’s skyline that hasn’t been seen for a generation.

Construction cranes are slinging concrete and materials to two new residential projects: a seven story, 66-unit Heartwood Place apartment building on Ainslie Street across from the bus terminal and a 12-storey, 115-apartment Waterscape condominium tower at the north intersection of Water and Ainslie streets.

More changes may be in store in the picture-postcard collection of historic buildings along the Grand River.

“We see and we’ve heard of a need for a meeting and convention hotel facility in the core area,” said Paul de Haas, whose company is building the $30-million Waterscape building, with a twin planned beside it in a few years.

If a hotel becomes a reality in downtown Cambridge, it could go on vacant — and at present, contaminated — land between Waterscape and the mill restaurant at Water Street and Parkhill Road.

“This is one of the options we are actively exploring,” de Haas said.

Aaron Ciacone runs the Ancaster Old Mill and is ready to start a $5 million renovation this spring on the stone mill restaurant he owns in Cambridge. He’s was hesitant to talk in detail about what is in the works, but did say talks are underway with local government officials about redevelopment incentives and tax breaks to bring something eye-catching to the land between the mill and Waterscape.

For now, Ciacone’s focus is finalizing minor land purchases and city zoning to get going on his revival of the old stone Riverbank Mill into a destination for business meetings and family gatherings like weddings. He expects work to get started in spring, with completion in a year or so.

People are expected to start moving into Waterscape by October, about three months behind schedule. Unexpected rock formations delayed installation of the foundation, but everything is now progressing well, de Haas said.

Both he and Ciacone see downtown Galt on the economic upswing, especially with city plans to build a $15 million performing arts centre along Grand Avenue beside Southworks Outlet mall.

The city will pay $6 million, along with similar grants from Ottawa and Queen's Park, to build the city-owned theatre that will be the headquarters for Drayton Entertainment at no ongoing costs to taxpayers. In turn, tens of thousands of theatre goers are predicted to shop and eat in downtown restaurants, leaving millions of dollars a year behind them.

It’s part of a long-term effort by a city council eager to boost redevelopment in each of the Galt, Preston and Hespeler core areas, although there’s ongoing grumbling by some that old Galt is getting more than its fair share of taxpayer incentives and breaks for developers.

The change underway in old Galt rivals the wholesale demolition of riverside buildings in the years after the 1974 Grand River flood. As flood walls and berms were planned, homes and factories were purchased and razed in the name of public safety. Downtown got a riverside trail system that’s the envy of other cities, but you could also argue its urban heart was ripped out in the process.

After three decades of bleeding, downtown looks ready to leave intensive care.

Since 2000, there’s been conversion of a former Tiger Brand factory on Ainslie Street into apartments, the long-vacant Woolco store on Main Street into the hip Cornerstone interior fashion store, apartments and townhouses built at Wellington and Main, and moving the University of Waterloo school of architecture into the former Riverside Silk mill along Melville Street.

Along with a second Waterscape condominium tower and the new Drayton theatre, an upscale seniors residential complex has city approval along Cedar Street at Grand Avenue. Plans are also underway to convert the former Royal Hotel at Main and Wellington streets and the former shoe factory at Concession and Water Streets into condominiums, too.

On Main Street, between Ainslie and Water, David Gibson—a key player in the renaissance of downtown Waterloo—spent $3.5 million to buy up seven storefronts with plans for redevelopment into trendy restaurants and retail within walking distance of the river. His first tenant is modest: a discount department store opened in part of the old Right House store a week ago. It’s not upscale, but it has something long missing from downtown: a hardware department.

Developers have also nosed about for years into other vacant properties downtown, kicking around plans for townhouses, apartments and condominium projects in places like the vacant Galtaco factory site at Wellington and Kerr streets, a vacant site immediately north of it near Galt Arena Gardens, and another vacant lot on Wellington Street behind the bus terminal.

With the economy picking up, it’s hard not to wonder what the Galt skyline will look like in another five years if a couple of those dreams become reality, too.

And it’s also hard not to ponder what challenges that kind of growth will bring to an area long shunned by most of the city’s suburban population.

kswayze@cambridgereporter.com