South Burrard | Proposed
 

Squamish have power to radically change city skyline


May 21, 2010

By Miro Cernetig

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Read More: http://www.vancouversun.com/business...882/story.html




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They were trying to get the Feds to lease an office building there a few years ago. These are the basic plans floated before them at the time.

Meh, all the power to them.

Exactly.

I didn't really like the tone of the article. Vancouver has already built mega projects on the rest of False creek, but the Squamish should leave theirs for traditional “urban green space”.

Come on.

The building on the West side of Burrard will have some of the most unobstructed views in the entire city!!! Though if each and every building there is constructed as per that first render that could be a bit much.

I do hope the city and band can come to some agreements on the overall development preserving some view cones. Maybe dropping the heights slightly... a bit of a step down from the Green Monster height for the West building... and maybe cut out at least one of the buildings on the East side.

But in no way should the band be expected to leave the land as urban green space.

Why would they bother putting office space on this site? If their objective is to maximize profit, surely an all-residential development makes more sense, even in however many years this takes to materialize.

We've got half a dozen major rapid transit-oriented office projects that can't even get off the ground (including Downtown and Broadway)...proposing to add "thousands of workers" to a site that isn't anywhere near Skytrain and already has traffic problems doesn't seem like a great idea any way you look at it.

^The East side of Burrard would mostly be hidden by the existing residential & office space and would be hard to sell, assuming a 99-year lease situation.

In contrast, building it as office space might be an attractive discount to downtown and would probably achieve sustainability goals for the band... i.e. leases!

The West side... with potentially AMAZING views and therefore easy to sell, even with the potential 99-year lease factor.

Hahaha "radically change" the skyline..... and it's not even really on the downtown peninsula!

In Vancouver, it's ALWAYS a tougher sell for office than residential. ;)

I'm not familiar with the sustainability goals of the Squamish FN, but I would be surprised if they were to forego revenue from condo sales (or sale to developer of pre-paid 99-yr land lease) versus the risk associated with owning and leasing office space long-term.

Looks good - dense mid-rise clusters.

Agreed, that I think that the office sites are the types of sites that would, in other developments, be allocated to social housing stock - under the lip of the bridge or hidden behind other buildings.

I think that the office space will build on the existing Credit Union Central Building and the light industrial lands to the south.

One thing I don't see is an RoW for the streetcar - it should/would be along the axis of the three silvery gray buildings on the rendering - along the north edge of the Molson's site. I suppose the street could be made wide enough for it in a median but that parcel is narrow enough as it is (being primarily former CPR RoW).

Not the "radical" change I had expected. Call me back when they wanna build a supertall on their land :P

Looks good to me. The south side of Burrard Bridge could use some more new developments.

How is this even going to change the skyline at all?

For completeness of the thread - here's the aerial posted by Prometheus in the General thread:

Agreed. The tone of this article is completely out of line. It's journalism like this that causes half the polarization in our community. What a joke.

This development looks great. Also love how they've worked with Kasian to incorporate elements of traditional architecture into the building design. Only concern would be the height of the one tower. I'm sure the CoV will be able to express their desires and negotiate to some degree with the Squamish following that new MOU they just signed.

The old Trolley ROW in Kits was from a loop at Kits Beach to the False Creek CPR yards (over a trestle east of the present Burrard Bridge, as shown by the red line on this satellite view of the area today:

http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/451...lleytracks.png

The blue curved line is the abandoned CPR tracks that curve around rhe Credit Union of BC building, and lead to a WYE. One branch heads east to the Granville Island Station of the Olympic Demonstration line, the other branch heads south to begin the Arbutus Corridor tracks that the CPR has also abandoned.

With the remaining portion of the trolley ROW running from Chestnut Street eastwards to the False Creek south shore, this ROW doesn't connect to anything anymore. I can see the redevelopment west of Burrard Bridge using this as a new roadway from Chestnut Street into the development, and possibly extending it eastwards under Burrard Bridge to provide better access to the Burrard Marina & the coastguard station, and also reduce the traffic that needs to use Whyte Ave to access the Burrard Marina, the parking lot, and the coastguard station.

I've been thinking for a while that the curved tracks provide an ideal alignment for a tunnel from Granville Island, under False Creek, and continuing as a subway under Burrard to the Convention Centre.

http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/968...e1dsmall2h.jpg

From the intersection of 1st ave, Pennyfarthing, and Fir a streetcar tunnel can be started that heads north following the blue line under False Creek and under Burrard St. The red line is the continuation of the streetcar line heading south to the Arbutus Corridor. The yellow lines are the alignment of the Downtown Streetcar that is being proposed by the City of Vancouver.


It would be a great loss if this new development prevented building this connection from downtown to South False Creek. It could be said that when the streetcar lines are built, the offices in this development could be easier to get to than offices that are actually downtown. I can certainly see myself 'commuting' from home at the Olympic Village to the office at this Squamish development - as long as there's a Tim Hortons along the way to get my morning JavaJolt.

This also shows how much larger the land taken up by Molsons is.
When the Squamish get going on their project, you can bet the Molson family will see the potential $billions$ they can make by moving the brewery out to some place with cheap land (Surrey? Langley? Coquitlam?) and redevelop their Burrard property into something of a cross-pollination between Bentall Centre (for offices) and Olympic Village (for condos). Perhaps not as tall as Bentall Centre, but at least as tall as what the Squamish could build.

Well it will radically change the skyline if you're living on the 1st-6th floor of any of the buildings in the Kits area, and that is what all the Nimbies will surely be screaming about.

Personally I think these renders look pretty decent to begin with. The article mentions 28 and 35 story towers but it looks to me that the one big one is 28 at the most. I'm pretty happy with the size, I am glad that they aren't proposing anything super tall, I'd prefer for the tallest of our buildings to be within the downtown core, preferably in the office district. A 60 story building there would look out of place (although the views over False Creek and Downtown AND Coal Harbour AND the North Shore Mountains would be insane).

I also thought the bulk of this development would be on the north/west side of the bridge (where that forest sits) and I'm pleasantly surprised at the density in the area. That being said, with all of that density planned and no streetcar plans it is a little worrying. Granville Island is a so-so anchor for the end of the line but this would be much much better. It should be something the city and translink push for. Definitely excited to see all of this plan out as well as ramifications on possible future development around Park Royal and the mouth of the Cap River.

I'm somewhat disappointed that they didn't reserve land for a LRT tunnel or something. On the other hand they may see it as a land grab against their development... and it already looks pretty good to the point that I don't want to see it go. Hmm.

In this photograph from 1982, you can see a portion of the old train tracks that curved around the Credit Union building, including the rail trestle that used to cross False Creek:

http://www.globalairphotos.com/image...ch1982_071.jpg

http://www.globalairphotos.com/image...ch1982_071.jpg

It has my full seal of approval. I love it, and I do think the highest tower is quite a proper height....this is the kind of density we should be seeing in Kitsilano anyway (or at least the eastern half of it) considering how close it is to Downtown.

The tone of the article is most certainly out of line, these days they don't report their news they report their opinion.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think one of those buildings partially hovers over the northbound Burrard Street lanes.


With this development, there's certainly an urgency to provide the area with better transit service.

Here's the pic I posted in the general thread. Now that I look at it more closely, the trolley RoW doesn't follow Greer, but is at an angle, as drawn by jsbertram:

Come on folks, this isn't losing a tunnel ROW for transit. A new tunnel across False Creek would be so expensive that it won't matter what land parcels we possess in advance, we would just purchase whatever land is necessary or tunnel under all of the development.

Seriously, another rail tunnel across False Creek after Canada Line is pie-in-the-sky stuff. At best, we will live to see a line built from this neighbourhood over to Olympic Village and/or up the Arbutus Corridor. To withhold land for a future tunnel mouth is ridiculous.

I don't remember saying block the development for a future Burrard St subway tunnel.

I thought I was saying design the development in such a way that a future Burrard St subway tunnel under the alignment of the curved abandoned CPR tracks would still be possible.

Perhaps the bare concrete tunnel portion could be built as part of the development & left vacant until the Burrard St subway and False Creek tunnels are built to connect to it.

Perhaps the development could have an underground streetcar station included so the Downtown Streetcars start and end the runs here, rather than Granville Island. Later the extension under False Creek and up Burrard St can be attached so streetcars run through this station. In the meanwhile, this station provides a direct connection from the downtown streetcar line to the development, and a round-about way to get downtown.


I read a few years ago that a new apartment complex in New York was to be built over a planned subway line, so NYCTransit paid the developer to build a two-block section of subway (just the bare concrete) under the parking structure and the rest of the building while it was all under construction. They figured it would be cheaper to build the subway tubes at that time, rather than prop up the building later to build the subway tubes under it later.

That section has been unused since it was built (if you don't count the illegal RAVES that are held there occasionally), but eventually there will be other subway tubes connecting to them so subway trains can run under the building.

In edmonton, when the Epcor Tower started construction, the city paid for a subway tunnel segment to be built under the site. This is because they were in active planning of the new northern branch of the LRT to NAIT, and they could save a lot of money by building the tunnel under the site during the tower construction. However, they are planning to build this LRT extension in the next few years. What we are talking about in Vancouver is like 40+ years away.

Remember they already built the Burrard st. bridge with a train lift segment in mind for a future subway, and that was never built. So there is such a thing as over planning. But I do think that the cityt should start to plan where the streetcar tracks will go from Granville Island to Arbutus before anything in the area is built.

I saw the same potentional, with the Armory as well. It could be a complete new amazing urban center. I great entrance to False creek with the potential of getting the CPR on board with their lands and tracks. This is an extremely exciting project for kits. If the Bental group redevelops their site too :)

Didn't they already do that with the New West Brewery?! Did it the opposite way they should have?! :shrug:

"Let's sell $100,000 condos instead of $1,000,000 ones!" :banana:

that was Labbats brewery in new west, and you won't find a condo there for 100 grand unless its a leaky one

That jogs my recollection that Calgary did something similar when the new City Hall was built in the 80s. They knew that an 8th Ave subway would be built sometime in the future, so the bare tunnels for it were built under the City Hall during construction. If you take the C-Train between the Stampede grounds and City Hall, you will see a bricked-up gap on the west wall of the tunnel the runs east of City Hall. This is where the south leg of the C-Train will connect to the 8th Ave subway in the future (running under the City Hall building). I'm also told there is another piece of tunnel so that 8th Ave subway trains can eventually connect with the NorthEast C-Train line after running under City Hall.

Rumours say that the bare tunnels are being used for dead-file storage for now.

I hear here there is a study or report being done regarding building the 8th Ave subway, since the 7th Ave transit mall may be at capacity when the new C-Train West line is finished and plugged into the rest of the system.
The report may be released after their election in the fall so it doesn't become another election issue.

There will be a huge fight if someone even thinks of moving the Seaforth Highlanders and their Armoury from the Burrard site. Especially when the building is now a Class A Heritage Building on the Heritage Registry.

DND could move the Seaforth Highlanders to a new Armoury at Jericho, or build new DND facilities on the parking lot behind the Burrard Armoury & consolidate some of their functions at Burrard.

Because of the deep history of the Seaforth Highlanders in BC, i have no doubt this will stir the passions of everyone on all sides of the debate.

well of course you would KEEP the Amoury, just the land behind it would be developed. Its a huge amount of land. They have all that extra land still further west too at on 4th.

I would hate to see the Molson brewery move out of the area. It adds an industrial edge which is missing in so much of Vancouver now (not to mention jobs near downtown). It is nice to still have one major production site in what use to be a larger industrial area, even if it is just for nostalgia / heritage reasons.

Also, if it were to be shut down, looking at past trends of factory closures in our area, they would not build a new brewery anywhere near Metro-Vancouver and it will simply become lost jobs.

wikipedia has some info on this subject:

Underground infrastructure

In addition to numerous tunnels to allow trains to pass under roadways, geographic features, and mainline railways, there are other notable underground portions of Calgary's C-Train system.

Part of the system through downtown is planned to be transferred underground when needed to maintain reliable service. Given this, portions of the needed infrastructure have been built as adjacent and associated land was developed.[31] As a result of this original plan, when the City of Calgary built a new Municipal Building, it built a short section of tunnel to connect the existing CPR tunnel to the future tunnel under 8th Avenue S. The turnoff to this station is visible in the tunnel on Route 201 entering downtown from the south, shortly before City Hall. However, after urban explorers discovered the tunnel and visited it during a transit strike[citation needed], the city walled off the spur tunnel with cinder blocks.

As the population of metropolitan Calgary increases and growing suburbs require new lines and extensions, the higher train volumes will exceed the ability of the downtown section along 7th Avenue S to accommodate them. To provide for long-term expansion, the city is reviewing its plans to put parts of the downtown section underground. The current plans allow the expanded Route 202 (Northeast/West) to use the existing 7th Avenue S surface infrastructure. The expanded Route 201 (Northwest/South), currently sharing 7th Avenue S with Route 202, will be relocated to a new tunnel dug beneath 8th Avenue S. The future Southeast/Downtown route will probably enter downtown through a shorter tunnel under one or more streets (candidates include 2nd Street W, 5th Street W, 6th Street W, 8th Avenue S, 10th Avenue S, 11th Avenue S, and 12th Avenue S). The future North line will probably share track from the Zoo station through downtown with the existing Northeast line (Route 202), avoiding the cost of a tunnel until passenger volumes grow.[25] Although Calgary City Council commissioned a functional study for the downtown metro component of the C-Train system in November 2007, the city is unlikely to complete this expansion before 2017 unless additional funding is received from provincial or federal governments.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-Train

Don't forget the former Carling O'Keefe brewery lands - at Arbutus & 12th. According to Wkipedia, Carling O'Keefe ad Molsons merged in 1989.

Molson has no property on Burrard St. The land the brewery sits on is owned is owned by the same band behind this proposal.

I think I heard something about this project on the radio. Something about how the (Squamish?) nation is meeting up to talk about it, and how a bunch of people worried because they don't have to adhere to normal regulations.

No, Molson owns the land under the brewery. The Squamish FN own everything to the North of the Molson site.

I don't see a lot of reasons why people would be opposed to seeing something built rather than keep the current billboards and such. Unless they're nearby residents of course. =O

BTW -
I saw a small blimp (the kind that takes view photos for condo projects) in the general vicinity of the south end of Burrard Bridge on Saturday.

From News1130:

http://www.news1130.com/news/local/a...to-vanier-park

that's pretty crazy how much the city has changed.

I look at the two comments (so far) in that news article and I'm seriously appalled by the reaction already.

Maybe later News1130 will post my counterargument, which basically stresses self-sufficiency, progress, and economic development. =)

The small-government conservative in me wants to see the band produce something fantastic and embarrass the city and its micromanaging. I have a feeling that won't happen though.

Best of luck to them, in any case.

I had to laugh at woman griping about the "world's ugliest building". What are the chances she was living there before it was built? :rolleyes:

Since nobody's seen how the towers' 2,000 residents are going to access the existing road network, I wonder how blasé about the development the Kits Point Residents Association is going to be if a bunch of cars are dumped onto Chestnut?

it is the worlds ugliset building though it needs to go

i think it's pretty neat, reminds me of hawaii or something. as for the development itself, i hope there's some consideration given to future light rail right of way from granville island into vanier park. something that ought to have been done long ago, imo.

comments
 

The comments on the radio blog are getting more interesting. Love the one about building the tallest building on the westcoast to make a statement about this being Indian land. :) Now wouldn't that piss of the nimby's.

If that were to happen, it could totally ruin the city's argument for preserving viewcones that cross that spot. Any developer wanting to build "behind" a huge native tower could say "well, WE'RE not ruining any views from city hall..." LOL

Just because its "native land" doesnt mean they have unlimited rights to do what they want with it. Any serious conflict between the residents, city and the natives can end up in supreme court and they would have the final say. I am sure the natives have good legal advice though and will know the limits of what they can get away with(which is allot obviously).

Contrary to popular belief natives dont have unlimited rights to their land regardless of what any political party at any point in time puts with ink on paper. In the end the courts still have the final say to determine what the limits of their rights are if a serious enough issue makes its way to them.

:previous:
Pardon a dumbass question, but which building is being referred to as "the world's ugliest building," exactly?

This one:

Street View