Website:
http://www.thebeasley.com/
The Beasley at Yaletown
Height: 300-feet/91-metres
Floors: 33
Suites: 211 units
Floor Space Ratio: 7.22
Parking: 337 spaces
Construction start: September 2008
Construction end: February 2011
Developer: Amacon
Other details:
- Project also has a heritage building on the site "The Homer" built in 1913 (Location of the Homer Cafe). This will be transformed to a high end lounge and restaurant.
- The building is named for former Vancouver City Planner Larry Beasley.
- The project will be mixed use including the lounge & restaurant, four other commercial units on the ground floor of the Beasley Tower, and two floors for office space.
- The ground floor of the tower will have 3 elevators, a fully equipped gym, party room with a pool table, kitchen & dining room & a garden terrace. Also on the 8th floor, there will be a 2000 sq.ft. terrace dedicated to dogs physical fitness.
The site, which includes a heritage building:
So much history in Beasley highrise
Mike Sasges, Vancouver Sun
Published: Thursday, March 20, 2008
VANCOUVER - Residency in a Beasley apartment or townhouse is an opportunity to participate in the memorialization of two Vancouver histories, one earlier, one later, one foundational, one transformative.
The retention of a building that has stood on the Beasley site for 95 years will commemorate the inaugural Yaletown, that Yaletown of warehouses and factories and rooming houses and greasy spoons created in the opening decades of the previous century.
The addition of a tower of glass to the site will commemorate the transformation of the warehouse neighbourhood into a residential neighbourhood that began in the closing decades of the previous century.
Consideration of the public purpose of Beasley residency is inevitable, given the project's "birth order" and name.
Larry Beasley was, until recently, co-director of planning at city hall. In that role, he organized and managed the city hall contribution to the insertion of homes into the old business districts downtown.
"He was a visionary who helped make the city what it is today," Amacon executive Richard Wittstock says. "As residents and business people in the vital urban core, we [at Amacon] felt that it was appropriate to say a collective 'thank you' for this.
"As Larry will be first to mention, the building is a tribute not just to Larry, but to all the visionary planning staff at city hall who work hard, but receive no recognition and share an equal partnership role with developers and architects in making a neighbourhood successful."
There should be no doubt that The Beasley will be either the last tower of glass homes or one of the last erected in Yaletown.
"The Beasley site is an extremely rare opportunity for buyers to get into the Yaletown market," Wittstock says. "This is the last remaining true Yaletown highrise site giving buyers the possibility of a Homer Street address. Supply gets tighter every year downtown as fewer and fewer sites become available for development."
The market response signals agreement: two-thirds of the homes were sold last weekend, the first weekend of selling. Buyers, by law, have a week to rescind.
In commemorating Larry Beasley's leadership contribution to "the evolution of downtown over the past 20 years," Wittstock says, all involved in the project wanted it to manifest his spirit, those "key principles that Larry advanced in his tenure."
Accordingly . . .
- The Beasley is a high-density-residency addition to Vancouver.
- It is a mixed-use addition.
- As an addition, it does not subtract, as completely, or as irrevocably, as it might. It does not exclude, as completely as it might. And it does not impose, as completely as it might. The project preserves a heritage building. It creates new rental accommodation downtown, built by the developer.
And, lastly, it lessens its consequences on the environment.
"A passive green roof to mitigate stormwater runoff and microclimatic effects" makes it a sustainable addition to the built environment.
An extraordinary number of floorplans, 26, and the insertion of 15 new homes for rent in the heritage building demonstrate respect for the inclusion principle. Both city hall and Amacon expect children will be among future Beasley residents.
"We know that more and more children are living downtown, as evidenced by what we see every day from our office and the waiting lists for daycare spaces and the Elsie Roy elementary school," Wittstock says.
"We fully anticipate that we may have a number of families with young children in The Beasley, and have designed our floorplans to be as flexible as possible to accommodate growing families.''
The Beasley asking prices are the latest contribution to the affordability debate in Lower Mainland. Absolutely high, but relatively low.
''The homes are attractively priced relative to today's market, starting well under $800 per square foot,'' Wittstock says.
''This compares favourably to the most recent offerings in the downtown market and on the Westside. The Beasley represents exceptional value in comparison with southeast False Creek or anything else available downtown today.''
The heritage component of the project, the Homer Building, is one of eight reminders of old Yaletown in the vicinity of the Beasley project.
City hall staff consider it ''a fine example of an early 20th century Edwardian-style, three-storey apartment block'' built ''to provide modest self-contained, single-room rental accommodation for single people or couples who would have worked in the downtown or [the Yaletown] warehouse district . . . ."
The retention and refurbishment of the Homer Building gained Amacon more than 80,000 square feet of ''bonus'' density that it can either use on site or sell to another developer. It is using its 80,000 square feet on site.
The heritage component is equally a bonus for the city, or the public realm, and future Beasley households.
''The retention of the Homer Building provides a very attractive link to Yaletown's past and serves as an anchor for the development,'' Wittstock says.
''Architecturally, it provides a counterpoint for the modern architecture of The Beasley.''
If there is a developer with the ability to mix office, retail and residential purposes in one building, it is Amacon: Its Melville project in Coal Harbour was voted best mixed-use project in a biannual industry competition.
The judges were all members of the local development fraternity, industry and government.
The organizer of the competition is the local chapter of the Urban Development Institute.
Says Wittstock of the influence of The Melville on The Beasley: ''In designing The Melville, we saw how the various parts can be integrated seamlessly both along the streetscape and within the structure itself to provide great urban design.
''These lessons have been applied in a similar fashion at The Beasley.''
On his watch, planner Beasley was famous for asking developers and builders to bring him architecture that demonstrated a ''dash of fun,'' as one Beasley news release says.
At The Beasley, that ''dash'' will be memorialized by a dog run on the eighth floor, a Vancouver first.
''The incorporation of the dog run speaks to the livability of Yaletown, that it can offer all the great attributes of livability that in the past drew people out to the suburbs,'' Wittstock says.
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The Beasley | 91m | 33 fl | Completed
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