601 Beach Crescent | 166m | 56 Fl | Proposed
 

I'm personally hoping it's a mirror tower to Vancouver House. Anyone else going to check this out on May 14th? I'm curious if they have any renders or further details on height, etc.

https://scontent.fyvr4-1.fna.fbcdn.n...4e&oe=5B97EAB4

More details on the site can be found in Changing City's excellent recap in the Rental Thread:

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/newr...eply&p=8178085

Hmm, JYOM Architecture.

Never heard of them. Is this the first major Vancouver project proposed by a Chinese architecture firm?

I'm certainly very curious, definitely mark me in attendance at this open house.

Hm, I have no idea how whatnext made that appear straight after I put the site history summary on the rental thread, as he noted.

JYOM seem to have another project in Richmond for Pinnacle called Capstan Village Center and a mysterious "Decotiis Residential Villa" is listed with no details. Almost all their other work seems to be in China, although their website (which shows a very young group of people) says "Completed design projects are located in the United States, Canada, Southeast Asia, and China". They list an office on Cambie Street.

Note that the 601 Beach Cres. site comes right to Beach along its southern border,
so the tower may be oriented more to the south than Vancouver House.

There are a couple of sleek looking towers on the JYOM website - (Civil Aviation Center and Marriott Wuxi).
Looking at Pinnacle's One Yonge project in Toronto for guidance (as opposed to Pinnacle's Vancouver projects),
I could see them proposing a sleek tapered tower with a conventional floorpate (square with curved corners)
on the southern end of the site.

It'll be interesting to see if they propose a tower as wide on it's southern face as Vancouver House - to form a symmetrical gateway.
If they do that, that may mean a triangular floorplate - but the angled side of a triangular floorplate would face northwest, rather than directly to English Bay.
A square or rectangular floorplate (of the same width as Vancouver House) would require a lot more FSR to get to the same height as Vancouver House.
A square floorplate building closer to Beach Ave. than Vancouver House could catch views of English Bay to the south of Vancouver House.

Context Plan from Vancouver House rezoning application.
Seems like there's a bias for a trapezoidal / triangular floorplate.

https://i.imgur.com/4DV2sgE.jpg
http://rezoning.vancouver.ca/applica...howe/index.htm

I wish I had such power! :haha:

Pinnacle have a very poor reputation for designs in Vancouver (they are notoriously cheap "value engineers"), so hopefully the new architect and prominent site mean they are treating this one differently.

Feb.26 '18, my pic
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...922/3OPWW4.jpg

Because one always turns to a Chinese company when you’re looking to build in quality rather than cut costs?!

their work looks abysmal

This is what Pinnacle is building at One Yonge in Toronto, using Hariri Pontarini Architects.

http://urbantoronto.ca/database/proj...acle-one-yonge

I'm hoping the Vancouver tower is similar.

Wow those towers look spectacular!

These are amazing.

What a game change on the Toronto skyline too!

I'm feeling pretty jealous. Imagine something like that in Vancouver, even on a smaller scale.

Here is to hoping someone like Holborn does something this scale on Hudson Bay site and carpark next door!

How can they (or anyone else) do anything ambitious in Vancouver if the city’s so-called leaders won’t allow them?

Well if we really want to start seeing such projects or something closer to them in Vancouver we really need to start making our voices heard much more than we already are, especially after just learning that the Butterfly and adjacent tower were going to be our city's tallest towers until another layer of shadowing height restrictions were arbitrarily slapped onto them (despite the fact the areas they would have shadowed are already shadowed by tree canopies)

Especially given all the new development potential around our major hubs (and so not be major hubs) something needs to give.

Any renders?

Nope. I did my best, but they understandably don't want to release any images, or even a description yet. That said, I'll be posting some information, likely tomorrow morning, that will make more than a few people here rather happy.

Huh? Wasn't this a public meeting?

The notice says 14th May, so not yet.

I was referring to featherfriend's post and he said he will be posting info today

Right. I understood that to be them trying to get information ahead of the meeting, but I guess we'll see when Feathered Friend posts later today.

Changing City's understanding of my words from last night is correct. Sorry for the confusion :)

Thanks for the information.

Thanks!

Personally, I think it's probably safer from an earthquake engineering liability perspective to build a conventional tower rather than a top heavy building, just for the sake of mirroring Vancouver House.

I'll bet the City could be exposed to potential liability, too, if it required Pinnacle to "mirror" a top heavy design to match the Vancouver House design.

PS - is the "roughly 530 foot tall, 52 floor tower" taller than Vancouver House (whose thread title lists 151.5 metres)?
Or is that height geodetic (from sea level)?
It would be nice to see a crown as a counterpoint to the flat roof of Vancouver House.

I just got back from the open house. I got pictures of all the boards and will post them all asap. Here are some to start.



May 14 '18, my pics
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...922/bKnVIa.jpg


https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...922/oai62i.jpg


https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...922/mwG0LN.jpg


https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...923/6XIdSx.jpg

Here's the first batch.



May 14 '18, my pics
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...922/wWKIFe.jpg


https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...923/pegQ5h.jpg


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May 14 '18, my pics
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...924/0DLX1n.jpg


https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...922/b2cPVk.jpg


https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...924/hdoK1x.jpg


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https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...924/Ld9onW.jpg

So what is the official height of the tower?

Guessing 160 metres?

It’s elegant but was hoping for something more unique.

The podium plays of Vancouver House well from what I can see so far.

PS, thanks!

Edit:

So it says 163 metres, but is that the tower height or just the elevation height? (The same graphic states that Vancouver House is 155 metres, so guessing it is the elevation height and this tower is 159.5 metres tall?)

Also what is West One at 144 metres? (140.5 metres?)

I like it but all depends on the quality of materials used. If the windows are like Vancouver house it will look good. Also looks nice and wide which also balances out nicely with Vancouver house. Would like to see the podium closer to the bridge, it's set back far with a bunch of useless park space. Isn't that going to be retail along there?

And the final batch.



May 14 '18, my pics
https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...924/pqKyNu.jpg


https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...924/jy6AbD.jpg


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https://imagizer.imageshack.com/v2/1...922/NRxuX2.jpg

Nice job, micminsen! Excellent contribution.

Thanks, I hope the boards are available online soon so more detail can be seen. I wanted to get a sneak peek up asap. It was fairly crowded so it took a while to get close to all the boards.

I like what I see so far. I was intrigued by the rotating of the tower and shaping it to mitigate the loss of view for the neighbours. I've been through that first hand when Atelier went up across the street from me. It had a major impact on my view (I basically lost most of it) but the facade facing me was curved so it was much less worse that it could have been. Also, the little consolation prize for me was that Atelier gives me enough shade to keep my apartment from getting too hot on days like today.

I fear they may have not done their due diligence regarding the city's general inflexibility and pettiness about height and could be misjudging the city's potential response to their liberal interpretation of the General Policy For Higher Buildings, which allows a building of "generally 425 feet."

We have to get rid of these arbitrary height limits. Thee is no rational behind them.

Thank you mcminsen for visiting the open house and snapping these pictures. It's definitely a nice looking tower and complements Vancouver House well. I like the how the tower incorporates a wavy facade (i.e dances up the tower) which flows very well, all without being too busy and contrived. Of course, no protruding boxes is an added bonus.

As for the height, I think it is acceptable for the area. Too tall of a tower wouldn't flow well with the dome skyline that Shangri La and Trump Tower created. If we are going to build a 700 footer or taller building, the corner of Burrard and West Georgia (The Burrard Building) is the best spot as sighted by the city.

HOLY MACAREL! :slob:

A shame we didn't notice you, mcminsen. We did bump into LeftCoaster, however I had forgotten my feather suit at home.

On a serious note, there was a very vocal minority that were extremely opposed to this building tonight (views / shadowing), and it really spooked the city staff in attendance. I'll write more on it later, but for now I highly suggest those that want to see this move forward write in at [email protected]

Very concerned that Pinnacle is the developer. As a Realtor I've done deals and owned is many of Pinnacle's products, generally the finishes and quality border on atrocious both on the exterior and interior. They'll need to up their game significantly or this could be the biggest eyesore on town. One Pinnacle development, The Sapphire, in Coal Harbour, is doing a complete re-do of the entire exterior just ten years after it was completed, purely for esthetics as many owners are appalled by the current appearance.

It's not bad.

A lot of it will depend on the quality of the finishes.

The white mullions may bear some similarity to the Canaccord Tower recladding.

The darker glass next to the white may - hopefully - bear some resemblance to the windows on Trump Tower.

It's a simple (cheap?) way to dress up a simple tower, mind you, the curvey waves down a façade have been done before - Westbank has the tower at Joyce, for example.

Also, the curves are created using the standard square window mullions, not actual curves.
- This could be a nod to the steps and setbacks of Vancouver House, but could come across looking cheap.

It'll be structurally simpler than Vancouver House, that's for certain.

I like the fact that it is taller than Vancouver House.

You can already see the value engineering at play here, with the illusion of sculpting the tower floorplates while doing so more just with the pattern in facade elements.

I would be extremely concerned with how this is actually appears when built (as opposed to Vancouver House where Gillespie basically committed to executing the design before even knowing what it would cost).

Thanks for the pics McMinsen!

Westbank works with too many Starchitects to try to cheap out on build quality.

I immensely appreciate the way Ian runs his business that allows the creation of these towers in Vancouver.

I don't know what it is about this town and opposition. Its a vacant lot in desperate need of something nice.

In an area already full of high rise of similar height.

How can anyone possibly even consider being in opposition to this?

They're not proposing a super tall here (though it should be).

:2cents::tup: Agreed!

Starchitects and build quality are not necessarily associated with other.

You might want to talk to a few strata boards in Westbank-built projects that are hamstrung with some pretty expensive build-quality issues, and Westbank's response is no different than any other developer in town addressing post-completion problems: "GFY".

Probably residents of Park West.

I wish that there was a more dramatic twist to this tower...

But all in all, a good proposal. They better keep the height!

As a former owner in a Westbank project, I can confirm that that is 100% true.

A nice-looking tower that will compliment Vancouver House, and offer a neat gateway in to the city.

As for the NIMBYs in attendance, they're probably neighbours that don't want a building obstructing their view. The shadowing issue is a joke. That part of the city is full of towers ranging from 20 to 40 stories.

As suggested, write to the city.