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Originally Posted by officedweller
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Wow, I must have been out of the loop for this (or it totally slipped my mind).
The article did actually trigger a recalculation for me:
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“They could sell it [the Larwill site] for $250 million and give the VAG $200 million … ” Rennie said,
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also:
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Rennie raised another idea for the gallery’s future: instead of expanding below ground, the VAG could look right across Howe Street, to the 230,000 square feet of empty retail space in Pacific Centre vacated last year by Nordstrom department store.
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OK, so let's say they abandon the Larwill Park site and get a $200m net cheque for it. Then they approach the Pacific Centre and take a, what, 100 year lease on the Nordstrom site. That $200m goes a long way towards refurbishment and customisation and recladding and new design, towards making that space work (also I'm sure the landlord themselves would spend some money towards upgrades).
230k sq. ft. of empty space, available TODAY, vs. how big was the art gallery design supposed to be, and probably another 5-10 years before opening? And the location would be A+ with two skytrain lines converging across the street, tourist central with all the major hotels around, underground parking, a city block that has limited ground-level alternative retail, and endless retail on surrounding blocks and below ground.
It just takes a little imagination to think of that building reclad to look more like a modern art gallery rather than an abandoned department store. But I kinda prefer all that donated money plus taxpayer money used for this, rather than what appears to be a big capital expense on a half-assed design that would not be nearly big enough at the Larwill site (it had the very Vancouver air of "we have no money to build things the right size so we'll just build a mid size and then wait for everybody to complain in the future - see Millennium Line, Lion's Gate Bridge, etc.)
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