Park Hyatt (1128 W Georgia) | 197m | 62 fl | Completed
 

The lower 15 floors will house the Shangri-La Hotel, the first Shangri-La location in North America. Hugely famous in Asia, it will likely have the highest room rates in Canada.

Standing 150 feet higher than Vancouver's current tallest building and ends in 2008, in time for 2010 olympics

Vancouver: Hong Kong-based Shangri-La Hotels & Resorts has signed a deal that will see 15 floors of the city's tallest tower made into an opulent, five-star luxury hotel. It is Shangri-La's first venture in North America. The full-service 120 guest rooms will all be between 500 and 750 square feet and will likely garner the city's highest room rates. The chain, with 42 hotel properties and 28 more in development, was attracted to Vancouver because of its reputation as an Asian gateway.

Locating in the city's new 642-foot high signature tower was an easy decision as the project is destined to be an instant landmark. The Shangri-La entry marks the first hotel brand to come to Canada in five years. CEO Giovanni Angelini says the chain is looking at expansion into other North American locations such as New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

CDN$350 million.

-Plans include a curated public sculpture garden.
-A 120-room hotel, including restaurants and spa, takes up the first 15 floors. General live-work homes (227 units) are on floors 16 to 42 and private access residential units on floors 43-59 (63 units) with penthouse on floor 60.
- The hotel guestrooms, averaging 550 square feet, are among the largest in Canada.
- Penthouse listed at $7.4 million (June 2005).
- During the height of construction activity 1,000 workers will be on site constructing 1 floor per week.

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http://thehoddlegrid.net/dump/shangri-la-vcr.jpg
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What floor are they currently on?

between the 42nd and 44th floors, i'm not too sure exactly which.

I think they have hit the 45th floor now.

oh, and for the record, there are 59 floors. ;) dunno if someone can change the title or not.

I know this may have been discussed to death in ssp at some point, but how did this developer manage to get permission for this unprecedented height in Vancouver?

They were building it in a zone whereby Density is the only practical limiting factor in height. Any building can be build up to 450 feet here, with exceptions up to 600 feet plus 10% for mechanical (so 660 feet), all within density retrictions.

in this case the building is over the density limit, however the developer "bought" density by refurbishing an old church.

^ plus, the tower is triangular to avoid blocking a view cone.

canadian mind and others as well, there's a counting issue i want to adress. we've seen floor numbers posted on the shangri-la construction site and it's undisputed that shangri-la is on the 48th numbered floor. now, how many actual floors are there then? count it! as u've done so, there are 45. but 48-45=3, which is not the conventional "numbered floor - 2 = actual floor." so where is this discrepancy from? there's the missing 4th and 13th floor, that's only 2 so where's the third? what people aren't aware is that apparent ground floor actually consist in two "floors". the first floor for the hotel and residential entry and the second floor for the live/work entry.(http://www.livingshangri-la.com/documents/planA3_1.pdf look at the upper right corner that says levels 1 and 2) having said that, whether you choose to consider those floors as two separate or one floor is to your own accord. however, for the sake of clarity, please also remember to add in the correct respective total floors, ie 45/58 or 46/59 or 48/61.

surprise! you could say there's only 58 floors... depending on how you count...

I wasn't aware of the different takes on the floor numbers. Nice to know, though.

Pic from yesterday...

http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g2...7/100_9428.jpg

ok, so there are 61 floors, 59 "true" floors, and 58 levels then??? That work :P

if so, when doing the titles, will we list number of official floors, number of true floors, or number of levels?

either way, the title is still wrong. :shrug:

someone back then described the difference between floor and level, i cant remember now haha. but 61, 59, 58 it's of frivolous dispute. lately i've noticed people not take into account that the ground floor consist in 2 floors so they don't add an extra floor to their count, which is fine, but then there would only be 58 floors in total. owell just wanted to bring that up

well, in my opinion, a level is basically that, level. even if there are two "floors" to it, the floors are really just adjacent to each other, with a meager difference in the height above ground. a floor meanwhile, is any change in a level elevation from one portion of the building to the next.

From the webcam - podium superstructure being erected:

http://img216.imageshack.us/img216/4484/untitledam9.jpg

Driving by, i'm really impressed with how the podium is starting to emerge, i didn't think it would rise more than a floor above street level.

I am pleased with the podium as well. I also thought it would be no more than a couple of storeys tall and instead it looks like it might be a reasonably sized building in its own right. I saw in the Georgia Straight's Best-Of issue that Shangri-La was voted best condo project in the city.

Maybe it's just easier to describe it in terms of feet or metres. Less complicated for people like me! :rolleyes:

love this picture! from www.flickr.com

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y10...10631a9d_o.jpg

btw, here's a video showing the scale model that was used in the presentation centre. you get a good view of what the podium looks like..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H1oabdfD9M

^Great find. So I guess that was taken from The Melville?

that picture is amazing, the anticipation of seeing this thing top is unbearable!