The Bay Parkade Redevelopment | 315, 271, 239m | 80, 69, 68fl | Proposed

[s211]

Originally Posted by jollyburger

Pray the Four Seasons hotel replacement is a supertall?

I've been praying for that too.

[gaviscon]

The most frustrating part is that these critical sites will sit empty and unproductive in its crippling state because of Holborn's unrealistic proposal

Meanwhile Calgary continues its ascent , becoming Western Canada's most premier city for young and competitive professionals

[jollyburger]

Originally Posted by gaviscon

The most frustrating part is that these critical sites will sit empty and unproductive in its crippling state because of Holborn's unrealistic proposal

Meanwhile Calgary continues its ascent , becoming Western Canada's most premier city for young and competitive professionals

If they built something on it 20 years ago it would have been a 20 storey office tower or something. Same goes for Granville Street, NE False Creek, Broadway Plan that was built under old rules, viewcones etc.

[trofirhen]

Originally Posted by jollyburger

Pray the Four Seasons hotel replacement is a supertall?

Originally Posted by s211

I've been praying for that too.

I didn't know that the Four Seasons replacement had the option of going 'supertall.' The present building, all bandaged up, looks like a plastic surgery patient waiting for the bandages to be removed. I was
under the (evidently mistaken) impression that the original Four Seasons would be spiffed up and made more convenient, but that the original building frame would remain, governed in height by the viewcones. I wouldn't mind seeing the viewcones tweaked, and a 550 to 700 footer there instead, designed from scratch, something elegant and beautiful.

[LowerLonsdaleMike]

Originally Posted by gaviscon

The most frustrating part is that these critical sites will sit empty and unproductive in its crippling state because of Holborn's unrealistic proposal

Meanwhile Calgary continues its ascent , becoming Western Canada's most premier city for young and competitive professionals

How is this proposal unrealistic? I've read through all of the submissions and it's a very thorough proposal that includes a lot. I think some of you need to start taking this one seriously as something that could actually get built.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by LowerLonsdaleMike

How is this proposal unrealistic? I've read through all of the submissions and it's a very thorough proposal that includes a lot. I think some of you need to start taking this one seriously as something that could actually get built.

Unless the developers are proposing a different phasing than the application, they are intending to start with the two residential (mostly condo) towers first, with the hotel tower development a few years later. Do you see the current housing market having buyers for over a billion dollars worth of condo units years before they would be completed?

[Ailurus]

Originally Posted by LowerLonsdaleMike

How is this proposal unrealistic? I've read through all of the submissions and it's a very thorough proposal that includes a lot. I think some of you need to start taking this one seriously as something that could actually get built.

If built today, the construction cost for this whole site would be well over a billion dollars. The market conditions right now don't exactly favour luxury condos - I have a hard time seeing them get sufficient financing/pre-sales for this to be profitable anytime soon.

[EDIT - lol, my comment was literally beaten by one minute]

[Glow Fun City]

Change to 3 hotels instead?

[gaviscon]

Originally Posted by LowerLonsdaleMike

How is this proposal unrealistic? I've read through all of the submissions and it's a very thorough proposal that includes a lot. I think some of you need to start taking this one seriously as something that could actually get built.

1/3 of people who bought a condo in 2020-2022 are expected to see their mortgage interests adjusted higher in 2027,
alongside all the condos and strata projects that are nearing completion this year or in 2027.
These residential units will flood the market.
Plus, I expect the economy to worsen over the next 3 years as the construction and real estate industries plunge.
Normally, young people (25-35) would buy in, but a lot of people feel insecure about their jobs and feel that their wages are significantly behind inflation.

The US' K-shaped economy doesn't look great either. Even if they made the hotel tower phase 1, I'm not seeing the hotel demand keeping up over the next few years.

Also, with the risk of sounding like a doomer, I absolutely think AI agents will do significant damage to Vancouver's service sector and tech industry that's very US-aligned.
We already saw this in January with mass layoffs at Amazon Vancouver

[csbvan]

This will be quite a long-term project and even in good market conditions wouldn't break ground for years. I assume that Holborn sees favourable political conditions for getting approval of the project now, and then they will see where the market is at in a few years. Depending on where the market is, the phasing/programming could shift.

It's not so much about the project being unrealistic, it's more about how long it will take for a project like this to realistically move forward. Given how quick the market shifted between 2021/22 and today, nobody really knows what 2027/28 is going to look like.

[osirisboy]

Originally Posted by Changing City

Unless the developers are proposing a different phasing than the application, they are intending to start with the two residential (mostly condo) towers first, with the hotel tower development a few years later. Do you see the current housing market having buyers for over a billion dollars worth of condo units years before they would be completed?

So we will see a huge downturn in housing starts this year?

[Spr0ckets]

Originally Posted by gaviscon

The most frustrating part is that these critical sites will sit empty and unproductive in its crippling state because of Holborn's unrealistic proposal

Meanwhile Calgary continues its ascent , becoming Western Canada's most premier city for young and competitive professionals

And it's not just the site for this development.
Don't forget the former Bay store next door.
No one's redeveloping that any time soon.

There's a whole large segment of blocks right in the heart of Downtown that will sit undeveloped or under-developed for possibly the next several decades before conditions before favourable for a more ambitious proposal to have a realistic chance of proceeding.

I do believe though, that that Holborn project will eventually get built sometime down the line.

.....just not looking like this, .....or being in this form (density or height).

[jollyburger]

The rezoning/DP timeline and phasing. Again who knows what their financial backing is and what kind of presales they need to make it work. I mean I wouldn't bet on any money on this project going ahead with the current market but I'm not going to spend the next three years replying to every development on the rezoning/DP questioning whether this project will ever see the light of day.

They hope the project’s rezoning application will enter public hearing for approval in about a year, which would be followed by a two-year development permit application process.

...

If all goes according to plan — including successful pre-sales toward the end of this decade — construction on the first phase could begin around 2030. This phase is expected to take approximately four years to build, with construction on the supertall hotel tower also commencing at some point during this period. The full buildout of the entire development is projected to span 13 to 15 years, placing potential completion in the late 2030s at the earliest.

https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/hudsons-bay-parkade-vancouver-redevelopment-holborn-group

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by osirisboy

So we will see a huge downturn in housing starts this year?

My crystal ball is in for repairs, so your guess is as good as mine. My guess is that in the city you won't necessarily see a huge downturn, (or even any downturn at all), but you won't see as many strata buildings starting, and they won't be on anything like the scale of these towers. CMHC 'housing starts' may still show activity, because they don't count anything until construction has reached ground level.

Looking at the project launches on the MLA website, and the levels of sales being achieved, my guess is that not many strata projects are going to get started anywhere in Metro Vancouver in the next year, at least, unless the developers are able to fund it without a construction loan, or they're planning on leasing the units for a while (like Wall Financial's recent Downtown tower).

[gaviscon]

I still can't understand why they didn't make the hotel tower phase 1. Like, do they not have analysts on the team?
The public knew about hotel shortages in Vancouver for years at this point -- before this proposal was made public for sure -- and anyone could see the housing market going down right about now, with all the new builds completing, the rate hikes occurring for a few years, and immigration targets being slashed in 2024. We just didn't know the crash would be this bad.

Even if the condo market rebounds to 2022 levels in the next 5~10 years (which I'm doubtful of due to my macro predictions for the Canadian economy as a whole)
will the hotel shortage stay once all the hotels proposed, U/C, and conversions are complete? We seem to have a lot of major projects in the pipeline already.

[gaviscon]

Originally Posted by jollyburger

If they built something on it 20 years ago it would have been a 20 storey office tower or something. Same goes for Granville Street, NE False Creek, Broadway Plan that was built under old rules, viewcones etc.

Me personally, I'd rather see a 20 storey office tower + moderately tall market rental and hotel tower cluster rather than waiting another 12 years for something to happen here with a signficantly less ambitious project.

But still fingers crossed. I really do hope something happens here. We've been waiting, doing nothing on this site for ages and I'm fed up looking at how the Bay + this + VAG has turned out, all pursuing unrealistic proposals, at the perfect timing when the respective markets were about to plunge. This whole block smells like piss and the litter situation reminds me of NYC. This is supposed to be the business heart of DT Van.

The site where the public housing tower is proposed is also crucial, and it's more of a reason why I'm worried this project will drag on because we can absolutely build a social housing tower there without Holborn in the next 5 years. I recently walked through DTES hoping to snap some pics and provide construction updates. But it looked apocalyptic and I decided I wanted to get outta there quick. The level of deterioration has gotten worse despite the homelessness situation looking better than it was during COVID.

[jollyburger]

Originally Posted by gaviscon

I still can't understand why they didn't make the hotel tower phase 1. Like, do they not have analysts on the team?
The public knew about hotel shortages in Vancouver for years at this point -- before this proposal was made public for sure -- and anyone could see the housing market going down right about now, with all the new builds completing, the rate hikes occurring for a few years, and immigration targets being slashed in 2024. We just didn't know the crash would be this bad.

Even if the condo market rebounds to 2022 levels in the next 5~10 years (which I'm doubtful of due to my macro predictions for the Canadian economy as a whole)
will the hotel shortage stay once all the hotels proposed, U/C, and conversions are complete? We seem to have a lot of major projects in the pipeline already.

They said they needed 10,000 more rooms by 2050.

https://vancouver.ca/files/cov/council-a...dress-vancouvers-hotel-room-shortage.pdf

They had 29 with 5,800 rooms in development.

https://www.biv.com/news/real-estate/van...0-rooms-in-development-pipeline-11714817

Since they are dependent on presales maybe the financing for a supertall hotel project isn't as straight forward. Who knows what the demand is for luxury hotel rooms in the city vs overall room availability.

EDIT: Some other articles mention 20,000 by 2050.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business...hotel-shortage-piques-investor-interest/

[gaviscon]

Originally Posted by jollyburger

They said they needed 10,000 more rooms by 2050.

https://vancouver.ca/files/cov/council-a...dress-vancouvers-hotel-room-shortage.pdf

They had 29 with 5,800 rooms in development.

https://www.biv.com/news/real-estate/van...0-rooms-in-development-pipeline-11714817

Since they are dependent on presales it seems pretty obvious the financing to just do a supertall hotel project isn't as straight forward as doing the most in demand tower first. Who knows what the demand is for luxury hotel rooms in the city vs overall room availability.

Fair enough. Just hoping for the best. These are some of DT Van's most important sites.

[officedweller]

Originally Posted by jollyburger

The plaza/courtyard has changed with smaller pavilion buildings.

and there's more sizeable retail spaces too.

Oops.
I guess not (the old layout shown below had a similar amount of retail space).

Originally Posted by jollyburger

Seems like Henriquez has more details about the rezoning application on their website. I think the level descriptions are new.



https://henriquezpartners.com/projects/501-595-w-georgia_388-abbott/

[LeftCoaster]

I don't see any reason why they can't change their phasing approach. This is still at rezoning stage, in a year when they're finished their DP they can build the hotel first if they see fit.

Originally Posted by gaviscon

The most frustrating part is that these critical sites will sit empty and unproductive in its crippling state because of Holborn's unrealistic proposal

Meanwhile Calgary continues its ascent , becoming Western Canada's most premier city for young and competitive professionals

I don't understand this comment. THere is far more under construction in Vancouver than Calgary, and has been for well over a decade now?

Especially employment space. Vancouver has added millions of square feet of office space and Calgary has actually lost a substantial amount.