Suburban Updates - All Other Metro Vancouver Municipalities - Page 36

Smooth · #**701** Posted **Sep 11, 2008, 4:58 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rusty Gull

Council's approval will allow the residential highrise to reach 240 feet -- 60 feet above the present official community plan limit.

Several speakers at the overflowing public hearing said they were opposed to amending the OCP and drastically changing the skyline of North Vancouver.

"I am really glad to see some sort of configuration of the 17th street . . . but I am very disappointed about the height of the building," said Gloria Atkinson, a local resident for 59 years.

I would hardly call a 240 ft. building in that area a drastic change to the North Vancouver skyline. Personally I think a redevelopment of that site is long overdue. That Extra Foods that is there is gross.

Now if only we could have a redevelopment of the Safeway site and 13th and Lonsdale. That's another site that's ripe for redevelopment.

fever · #**702** Posted **Sep 11, 2008, 5:43 AM**

Not sure why they allowed the entrance off Lonsdale. It doesn't matter how bad it is now, it shouldn't be there. Pleasantly surprised by the height and density at 2.95 over 1.75 acres. Here are the (hideously low quality) cnv documents

http://www.cnv.org/attach/2008%2007%2028%20item%2013Lonsdale1632.pdf

jlousa · #**703** Posted **Sep 11, 2008, 4:30 PM**

Redevelopment, McKay & Kingsway, V5H 4N2 DEFERRED/CANCELLED

Note: This is a future planning item only at this time; there is no design, working drawings or construction schedules determined. Further update in one year. No movement anticipated on this for several years.
Project: redevelopment of Station Square; reduce the dysfunctional retail space to the south; construct new retail buildings at grade and the second level; construct raised parking with ramps to the south; relocate the Metrotown tunnel towards McKay to improve on-site pedestrian and vehicular movement; reconstruct the parking garage with an urban frontage; create airspace parcels to accommodate two new residential towers along McKay; and construct underground parking garage to service the new residential towers (number of units being defined).

No suprise here, I'm sure we'll see some movement at this site during the next boom though.

LeftCoaster · #**704** Posted **Sep 11, 2008, 5:22 PM**

To be honest I'm a bit surprised they did not movie forward with renovations of the retail space, as the ratail market is still quite strong and they are probably hemmoraging money on those properties. I guess the retail was too tied in with the new towers to phase it.

I'm very pleased with what I am hearing about the Extra Foods site, that place is currently a dump so prettymuch anything is an improvement. If the entrance and exit is a problem they can always turn entrance/exit into an exit only with traffic control and move the entrance elsewhere once the store has gained it's customer base back.

phesto · #**705** Posted **Sep 11, 2008, 6:49 PM**

Part of the problem with Station Square is that it is held a partnership between Anthem and Beedie, which has complicated the redevelopment plans.

As Beedie continues to do more non-industrial development, I can see something happening there. Ideally though, one of them should just sell their interest to the other and get on with it.

--------------------

Fever – agreed that the entrance off Lonsdale is odd. I can see pedestrians being run down by left turners off Lonsdale entering the garage. I can’t think of any other underground entrances off Lonsdale??

Regarding the tower – it looks good, but will it pass? The CNV OCP is so screwed up, it forces any developer proposing something sizeable to take this adversarial approach with the community.

paradigm4 · #**706** Posted **Sep 11, 2008, 8:13 PM**

Anyone going to the Surrey City Centre open house tonight? From 4 to 8. I'll be there taking lots of pics so if you see me, say hi

Lead · #**707** Posted **Sep 11, 2008, 8:23 PM**

I'll be there...I have school then but I'll definetly check it out.

Volksboi · #**708** Posted **Sep 11, 2008, 8:33 PM**

Im going on Monday, I have to work tonight....

geoff's two cents · #**709** Posted **Sep 11, 2008, 8:47 PM**

I'm out of town for awhile, but really looking forward to seeing as much info as you guys can dig up there! Vancouver is leagues and leagues ahead of Surrey in terms of quality of life, stuff to do, cultural attractions, etc. (in my own very subjective opinion), but in terms of sheer transformation, Whalley has been the most exciting developmental process to watch (look at where the whole area was when skytrain first went in). Can't wait to see what they have planned!

westcoast604 · #**710** Posted **Sep 11, 2008, 11:05 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by jlousa

Redevelopment, McKay & Kingsway, V5H 4N2 DEFERRED/CANCELLED

Note: This is a future planning item only at this time; there is no design, working drawings or construction schedules determined. Further update in one year. No movement anticipated on this for several years.
Project: redevelopment of Station Square; reduce the dysfunctional retail space to the south; construct new retail buildings at grade and the second level; construct raised parking with ramps to the south; relocate the Metrotown tunnel towards McKay to improve on-site pedestrian and vehicular movement; reconstruct the parking garage with an urban frontage; create airspace parcels to accommodate two new residential towers along McKay; and construct underground parking garage to service the new residential towers (number of units being defined).

No suprise here, I'm sure we'll see some movement at this site during the next boom though.

Not sure where you get your info from, but I know for a fact that this project is in the re-design process, and is proceeding at this point.

jlousa · #**711** Posted **Sep 11, 2008, 11:17 PM**

Comes from tendering info, the project has been removed, note if you read the details it states that there is no schedule determined and there will be an update in a year. The cancelled/deffered is just a standard tag as they don't seperate them. I'm sure they are working on something, but nothing that is ready to be presented for rezoning or tendering at this stage, so like it states they don't anticipate anything happending for several years.

Any info you're able to share?

CoryHolmes · #**712** Posted **Sep 12, 2008, 2:28 AM**

I went to that Central City Open House. So not what I was hoping for. The 3D flyover was basically a technical demonstration of how the City Planning department does its job. It was a 45-minute presentation on GIS systems and a dinky little Google Earth model.

The rest it was meh-ish. It was giant placards of the slides listed on the Surrey website in regards to their Transit Village plan.

The only real good thing that came of it was a feedback section for each of the proposed neighbourhoods. There was very little in the way of concrete plans presented, which in a way is okay since this was mainly to get public responses before developing said plains, which should happen in the Spring.

On the plus side, the presenter did confirm that there is a 50-odd storey building in the works, and he suggested it would be in Weststone's complex (which is Urban Villiage, right?)

Anyway, I'd give this presentation a 2/5 at best.

paradigm4 · #**713** Posted **Sep 12, 2008, 3:13 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by CoryHolmes

I went to that Central City Open House. So not what I was hoping for. The 3D flyover was basically a technical demonstration of how the City Planning department does its job. It was a 45-minute presentation on GIS systems and a dinky little Google Earth model.

The rest it was meh-ish. It was giant placards of the slides listed on the Surrey website in regards to their Transit Village plan.

The only real good thing that came of it was a feedback section for each of the proposed neighbourhoods. There was very little in the way of concrete plans presented, which in a way is okay since this was mainly to get public responses before developing said plains, which should happen in the Spring.

On the plus side, the presenter did confirm that there is a 50-odd storey building in the works, and he suggested it would be in Weststone's complex (which is Urban Villiage, right?)

Anyway, I'd give this presentation a 2/5 at best.

Yes, the 3D presentation was quite underwhelming and Stuart did go on excessively about the technical aspects of GIS - information that was surely not necessary considering who was attending. We just wanted to see a cool 3D flyover mockup of the City Centre in the future, and only got about 2 minutes of that, compared to 30 mins of GIS info...

I found the presentation about the land use plan to be much more interesting and informative. It's not anything you can't read online really though.

I actually was expecting a giant model with buildings and such when I read about the open house - though I'm not sure why haha!

The Weststone Urban Village tower was mentioned to be a signature high rise, while there was a lot of emphasis on "Five Corners" near Gateway to be a signature gateway to the City Centre - alluding to a signature tower (perhaps the tower from Quattro?), but Mark, the senior planner, went on to say "possibly a large roundabout". Hah! Imagine a giant roundabout on King George entering Surrey. Collision central, though it would be cool looking

Stuart (GIS guy) also mentioned that the Infinity commercial component is definitely under review, and both Mark and Stuart mentioned the moving of City Hall. Stuart actually mentioned that there's rumours that the city is working with the province, who wants to consolidate a lot of space, on the tower. However, the city hall move is still very much "talk".

Mark mentioned that there currently is no real "pull" to actually come to City Centre, so the major selling point of moving there is the views. They are working hard to maximize view cones, and are very willing to go much higher than Vancouver in terms of towers to ensure developers get a good cut.

Mark also fumbled back and forth in terms of referring to rapid transit expansion in Surrey to both LRT, streetcar, and rapid bus. It's quite evident that the Mayor and staff want LRT and are negotiating or putting together a business case to go with light rail over bus or SkyTrain.

paradigm4 · #**714** Posted **Sep 12, 2008, 3:31 AM**

Here's some pics I took:

Infinity

Quattro

Urban Village massing

geoff's two cents · #**715** Posted **Sep 12, 2008, 3:39 AM**

Admittedly, it would have been nice to have had more in the way of concrete proposals or plans, but this is something at least. Thanks for the updates!

Jared · #**716** Posted **Sep 12, 2008, 3:42 AM**

got any bigger pics of the last two?

Other than that, it seems like the entire thing was a "LOOK WHAT GOOGLE SKETCHUP CAN DO!!!" meeting.

CoryHolmes · #**717** Posted **Sep 12, 2008, 3:58 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jared

Other than that, it seems like the entire thing was a "LOOK WHAT GOOGLE SKETCHUP CAN DO!!!" meeting.

Not quite. They went on (and on, and on, and on, and on) about how they took developer proposials of building designs (usually in SketchUp) and convert into a file they can use. They then take this and plunk it into a supposidly detailed model of Surrey that was so big and complex that they couldn't show it to us, instead using the Google Earth stand-in.

nickinacan · #**718** Posted **Sep 12, 2008, 6:02 AM**

I too went to the open house, however I didn't really expect anything huge considering what they had listed for their current "stage" on the City of Surrey website. This open house was more looking for feedback and recommendations, much like the idea fair they had, but a lot more specific. Like many of you, I do wish they had more concrete information, but since they are working on finalizing the plan, we won't know exactly what's going to happen until the spring.

Also there was talk about a civic square, which is most likely going to go across from Surrey Central Station. Although he suggested Nathan Phillips Square in Toronto, I'd rather see something more like Dundas Square, but with a bit more greenery.

I'm glad to hear that the city is open to having tall buildings. Even though we didn't get to see the 3D rendering, at least we know that they are looking at the overall picture of what everything will look like, rather than just blindly approving everything that comes their way. We can be guaranteed that Surrey's Downtown will have an impressive skyline.