Some of you may have read this already, however it was in the Business Examiner!
An interesting and dissappointing comment from Lowe, and a great comment from Rob Randall.
I think the Mayor just doesn't want to make a stand one way or the other. To please both sides. Frustrating really!!!
Does Gateway Green’s variance set a bad precedent, or just a sane one?
A shortage of premium office space could turn the City of Gardens into the City of Towers as plans are afoot to start building some of the city’s tallest structures near the downtown core in violation of time-honoured zoning rules, warns Victoria’s mayor, Alan Lowe.
“This will break new ground definitely. If council sees that this is the only way office buildings can be built in the downtown core, we may see more taller buildings,” says Lowe.
At 15 storeys and 57 metres tall, Gateway Green would provide 140,000 square feet of sorely needed premium space. Located at the corner of Blanshard and Fisgard streets, it will achieve the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Silver standard and will feature a “living wall” (vertical garden).
“We identified a real need for Class A office space,” Gateway Green developer Travis Lee told the Business Examiner.
The need has gone unmet for so long, says Lee, because the city’s height restrictions make it unprofitable to build office space downtown where it is needed.
“We’re looking at 10 years since Victoria developed a Class A office building (St. Andrews Square) for the private sector. You need to have this type of density to support this type of development,” says Lee.
Lowe readily admits the city gave height allowances to the developers of The Hudson, a tri-tower 500-plus residence and commercial development, that would revitalize the old Bay building area in the north end of downtown. The tallest building will stretch 24 storeys high. But there was a reason.
“Due to the fact they’re saving that heritage Bay building, we’d give them that extra height.”
Lowe says that was a unique project, now one he fears has set a dangerous precedent.
“My comfort level was not there. I felt this project (Gateway Green) was a bit too big and a bit too dense for this site. If it was a larger site, reducing the density and the massing of the building, it might be a different story.”
Lee took the unusual step of revealing his proforma to council in the hopes of justifying the unusual density. The finished square-foot ratio would be 7.6 to 1. That means for every 1,000 square feet of land, there would be 7,600 square feet of finished space, potentially the highest FSR in the city.
“That’s the smallest we can build the building with an expectation that it‘ll be profitable,” says Lee.
Is it justified? Absolutely, says an industrial specialist with Colliers International.
“There’s probably demand for 150,000 square feet,” according to Ty Whittaker.
“There are a lot of companies that are expanding and are needing to find space and they just can’t find anything. The cost of land and the cost of construction is so high that it’s really proving to be a barrier.”
A Colliers market report for 2006 stated Victoria lost more than 105,000 square feet of office in the past eight years, leaving it with an uncomfortable, and so far, unaddressed, deficit.
Whittaker says the city’s residential boom pushed developers to put up living space instead of office space, leaving only condos on the drawing board.
In a recently-released study, Coriolis Consulting said the city needs another 1,000,000 square feet in the next decade, and is at risk of losing more and more business to the suburbs.
That’s the void Travis Lee’s 40-million dollar project would start to fill.
“There’s certainly pent up demand . . . so we’re trying to be the ones that fulfill that need,” says Lee.
According to Lee, support has not only come from council itself, but the city’s Advisory Design Panel and community groups like the Downtown Residents’ Association.
DRA chair Robert Randall says the project actually helps balance the Hudson project, creating a healthy mix of business and residential.
“We’re so excited. It provides safety and vibrancy. Y
ou have a busy area with the business during the day, and a busy area with the residences at night.”
Randall says the creation of new space not only aids the economy by bringing in new operations or companies to the city, but also enables smaller companies to move into Class B or Class C space vacated by existing companies who choose to upgrade. Plus it addresses an aesthetic issue as well.“We have a lot of land sitting fallow and no one seems to know what to do about it. It’s heartbreaking to see it sit like this.”
Randall cautions those who might ask to scale down Lee’s development with seemingly minor alterations would actually create more problems.
“We could lop three or four storeys off Gateway Green, but that means we’d have to put it somewhere else. If you start stripping density, it simply pushes it somewhere else. Where can it go?”
Lee wants to build more in the donwtown, especially aroun Antique Row on Fort Street. “I think this will, you know, put Victoria back into the seat of being the business centre for the CRD.” BE
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. It's the same floor plate as the Juliet and is also at 14 stories.
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