Northeast False Creek | Proposed

[officedweller]

Thanks for posting. I went to that nefc site, but didn't have time to wade through the info to find what's new.

[djh]

Originally Posted by officedweller

Thanks for posting. I went to that nefc site, but didn't have time to wade through the info to find what's new.

Originally Posted by officedweller

Hi there,

You are receiving this email because you have indicated that you would like to be informed of the City of Vancouver's planning work in North East False Creek. We would like to invite you to attend an open house on December 8th 4-8pm at the Roundhouse Community Centre at 181 Roundhouse Mews (corner of Davie and Pacific Blvd.)

The open house will be a chance to share ideas and hear your comments on future options for the Plaza of Nations site (Canadian Metropolitan Properties) and the North East False Creek area.

Staff will be on hand along with the developer to answer your questions. Along with display materials, there will be a walking tour of the site at 6pm and a presentation at 7pm.

For more information about the open house and the planning work being done in North East False Creek, please view the website here

www.vancouver.ca/nefc

Eh? You went to it already? It's in the future...Time travel could come in useful on this thread


EDIT: Ooh, the WEBsite!

[wrenegade]

NEFC Open House today at 4pm (now!) at the Roundhouse Community Centre. I can't make it, hopefully someone here can.

[jlousa]

Okay here goes, I got soaked and probably sick but it was worth it.

What the city wanted in sqftage

residential 1.4M
Commercial 350K
Public space 80K

What Canadian Metropolian is proposing is

Residential 1.4M
Commercial 700k (350K More)
Public space 67K (13K less)

Public accessibly ice rink + 14K indoor space (~100K)

All in all it's a very impressive proposal, here's the readers digest version

Ice rink building would be next to Coopers lookout and have two towers over it. There are 7 towers in total with the highest being ~30Stories. The more interesting proposal is two 30 stories towers along Pacific connected via a 6 storey bridge at the very top. To be honest as interesting as it looks I'm not a big fan of it.
The Plaza would be where Enterprise Hall is today, so at the southern end of the property, it would be ~48K sqft and large enough for 4000 people.
Seawall will finally be along the water's edge there instead of cutting inwards.
The Expo forest on the West side of Enterprise Hall ~10K will remain, while the Expo forest on the East side will disappear as will the building which currently houses Gossip.
The Presentation boards will be released tomorrow afternoon, the image of Pac Blvd being bi-directional are wrong though, it will remain as is but with traffic calming in place. The Streetcar is envisioned to run along the south side of the street until the stadium and then transfer over to the north side.
The steps down Georgia will connect across via a street level crossing and include another mini plaza at the waters edge.

If everything goes smoothly rezoning could occur next year, with shovels in the ground not expected until 2012 at the earliest.

The Ice rink will be for the Canucks and visiting teams from 8am-11am when they require it. Apparently the NHLPA regulates practice times to only those hours. All other times, or when the team isn't in town the rink would be available for use by the public. The Canucks would also have 3-4 stories of commercial office space above the rink.

[officedweller]

Originally Posted by djh

Eh? You went to it already? It's in the future...Time travel could come in useful on this thread


EDIT: Ooh, the WEBsite!

Slow day, or what?

[Locked In]

Thanks jlousa, great summary. Just got back, and I can't think of much to add, except that the city will be taking comments on the proposal via an online comment form on the NEFC webpage, so make your voice heard SSP. Presumably they'll all get kinds of grief about being 13K short on open space even though MPP (and Aquilini) are offering a quasi-community centre. The planner I overheard was practically asking people to complain about that, and the fact that the motorized marina is staying put (albeit reconfigured).

EDIT: CBC was filming and a reporter interviewed all the key people there, so there will probably be something on the late local news about it for those who are interested.

[jlousa]

There were a couple of guys there that I pegged as SSP maybes. One was Indiana Jones Hat guy, the other was ski-pass on jacket guy.

[Millennium2002]

Oh what the... more complaints about park space? Come on people... there's a huge park just to the north... and the new community amenity space with the ice rink sounds more than sufficient as a replacement ( although maybe they could expand it to a full-fledged recreation centre with swimming pool, one or two gyms, and a rink? =D ). Sheesh. And I thought Vancouver was progressive... well... to a certain extent. ><

[golog]

Oh what the... more complaints

Even though it doesn't have a ferris wheel, I think I can find a way to support it in my heart

[Millennium2002]

That makes it sound like if the project will fail... or just barely scrape by after how many useless and simplified revisions? ><

I hope Yaletown residents can warm up to the fact that they'll get amenities from this development...

But then again I also think the consultations will be infiltrated by outsiders that just want to pile demands on top for their own liking rather than look at the big picture. (sigh)

[wrenegade]

I eagerly await the presentation boards.....and here they are: Presentation Boards

I think the overall concept looks fantastic. I'm not really too concerned that the proposal comes ~12k sq. ft short of the 80k the city wanted, it still looks good. With the SEFC plaza across the water and the extension of Creekside Park I think there will be plenty of open space in the area. I think the ice rink plan is a spectacular idea, although with the Canucks moving in there would that mean they abandon any plans for occupying space in the GM Place/Rogers Centre Tower? The building heights look good, I think I might stagger some of the buildings that are 30 and 30/18 and 18 to something like 26/34 and 14/20 to change the shadowing a bit (placing the larger towers further away from the Georgia Steps/Creekside park area). The massing of the 6 storey skybridge portion connecting the two 30 storey towers looks a bit ominous but I'll withhold any comments until I see an actually building design/rendering. This project is still a little ways off but it is exciting.

[officedweller]

Thanks for posting.

Not keen on the bridge tower. I don't mind the concept of a bridge tower - just the placement of it. The proposed location just blocks the sightlines ("view"!) of the stadium.
Maybe the bridge could link the upper floors of the two towers on the eastern parcel on the site?

Would be nice if there were more commercial space at grade - but I suppose its viability could be in doubt (most people walking from the casino to the seawall would take Smithe, not the new internal road).
They've provided restaurant space along the seawall and it looks like they'll add more retail space along the street that leads to the Georgia Steps (as well as the seawall to the east).

As an aside - it still looks like Pacific is two-way in those drawings (i.e. with a median and no indication of streetcar tracks).

[Millennium2002]

Maybe... but what I think they're trying to do is like some sort of "doorway"... so placing it sideways to the east would not have the same effect? =S The building planned just to the front of it (looking from south towards north) however sort of ruins that appearance from several angles.

Honestly it looks a little radical... but I'm supportive of the density... not sure how it'll go with the Province though... as BC place is supposed to be a "centerpiece" once the renovations are done.

[officedweller]

I think it's primarily the elevation of the bridge - it obscures the masts so much and for a great length of the south side of the stadium.

[SpikePhanta]

Originally Posted by awvan

I eagerly await the presentation boards.....and here they are: Presentation Boards

I think the overall concept looks fantastic. I'm not really too concerned that the proposal comes ~12k sq. ft short of the 80k the city wanted, it still looks good. With the SEFC plaza across the water and the extension of Creekside Park I think there will be plenty of open space in the area. I think the ice rink plan is a spectacular idea, although with the Canucks moving in there would that mean they abandon any plans for occupying space in the GM Place/Rogers Centre Tower? The building heights look good, I think I might stagger some of the buildings that are 30 and 30/18 and 18 to something like 26/34 and 14/20 to change the shadowing a bit (placing the larger towers further away from the Georgia Steps/Creekside park area). The massing of the 6 storey skybridge portion connecting the two 30 storey towers looks a bit ominous but I'll withhold any comments until I see an actually building design/rendering. This project is still a little ways off but it is exciting.

I think maybe the Rogers Centre tower will be occupied by one single tenant, Rogers maybe?
I would also like to see renders of the skybridge, right now though I'm not that big on it, since I would like to see BC place a centre piece.
The Ice rink is gonna be fun, I like the location (compared with the other DT ice rink, Denman).
Civic square seems like a good potential spot to have an outdoor local band concert during the summer.
The canucks are going to have some killer views of False Creek!

[Prometheus]

I find it unfathomable that they are planning to exclusively devote so much prime real estate to an extension of Creekside Park. There is more than enough space between the seawall and Pacific Blvd to accommodate both a row of beautiful towers on the north half (i.e., adjacent to Pacific Blvd) and a very spacious park on the south half (i.e., adjacent to the seawall), just like George Wainborn Park, Coopers Park and Harbour Green Park. Such a configuation would be a far more beautiful, elegant and logical use of such prime waterfront real estate.

What a complete waste. Instead of adding to the beauty of the False Creek skyline and creating new street life along Pacific Blvd to Quebec Street and City Gate, we will be left with an over-abundance of park space, a glaring gap in the False Creek skyline and an exposed viaduct.

[Canadian Mind]

Originally Posted by awvan

I eagerly await the presentation boards.....and here they are: Presentation Boards

I think the overall concept looks fantastic. I'm not really too concerned that the proposal comes ~12k sq. ft short of the 80k the city wanted, it still looks good. With the SEFC plaza across the water and the extension of Creekside Park I think there will be plenty of open space in the area. I think the ice rink plan is a spectacular idea, although with the Canucks moving in there would that mean they abandon any plans for occupying space in the GM Place/Rogers Centre Tower? The building heights look good, I think I might stagger some of the buildings that are 30 and 30/18 and 18 to something like 26/34 and 14/20 to change the shadowing a bit (placing the larger towers further away from the Georgia Steps/Creekside park area). The massing of the 6 storey skybridge portion connecting the two 30 storey towers looks a bit ominous but I'll withhold any comments until I see an actually building design/rendering. This project is still a little ways off but it is exciting.

I love the numbers of this project. The more commercial space downtown, the better.

My concern is the views of the Stadium. Granted I'm not the biggest fan of the Viewcones and think they should be relaxed for the sake of development, but I think that they should stay, albeit with some modifications. The stadium is very likely going to be gorgeous, and it would be a crime if any more than 1/3-1/2 of the stadium is obscured by towers when viewed from either OV, Science World, or portions of the Creek between Science World & OV and the Stadium.

So while I'm not against towers, I'm against the concept of fully blocking off the stadium. How hard would it be to rework the concept so that the SW portion of the site would be low rises, while the NE portion of the site would be a concentrated cluster of towers that may protrude into viewcones, without interfering with the view of Science World looking down Georgia?

[SpikePhanta]

Originally Posted by Prometheus

I find it unfathomable that they are planning to exclusively devote so much prime real estate to an extension of Creekside Park. There is more than enough space between the seawall and Pacific Blvd to accommodate both a row of beautiful towers on the north half (i.e., adjacent to Pacific Blvd) and a very spacious park on the south half (i.e., adjacent to the seawall), just like George Wainborn Park, Coopers Park and Harbour Green Park. Such a configuation would be a far more beautiful, elegant and logical use of such prime waterfront real estate.

If i'm not mistaken the area where creekside park extention is going can't be used for buildings because of the soil, heavily polluted from the rail yards, compared to everything else in the area.

Also anyone knows what happend to this? Three towers on the north next to pacific (concord)

hosted on my Facebook.


Also I read somewhere that the waters of Fals Creek is clean now, and its possible to put a beach so... Maybe it would be interesting to put a beach there, also considering that the sun always shines on the area. (no large shadows.)

[Porfiry]

Originally Posted by Canadian Mind

The stadium is very likely going to be gorgeous, and it would be a crime if any more than 1/3-1/2 of the stadium is obscured by towers when viewed from either OV, Science World, or portions of the Creek between Science World & OV and the Stadium.

I was thinking the same thing. It seems strange to spend so much time and effort building an iconic new roof, only to cover it up with towers to the point where only slivers of it are visible at any given location. Perhaps the ambitious design was a waste.

[golog]

With all the buildings going up on the BC Place property, it's inevitable the views get blocked and half-billion dollar roofs don't pay for themselves. If the skybridge thingy is built, then Vancouver can check off another architecture bingo space since it will look like one big building with a hollow space.

Never noticed that Science World is intentionally in line with the axis of Georgia St. I'm really going to look forward to that grand staircase, although I might be waiting a long time to see that happen with all the construction traffic scheduled for the area.

Originally Posted by Prometheus

I find it unfathomable that they are planning to exclusively devote so much prime real estate to an extension of Creekside Park.

It will be useful for the dragon boat festival, I'm sure it will be as well used as David Lam park (Jazz Fest, movie nights, athletics, ...)

The bigger the park, the exponentially that can and will be done to use it. Would be nice if Creekside linked well with the soccer fields (Andy Livingstone park?) just north of the viaducts, and it should along Carrall St.

The one complaint I have to contribute is that they should avoid 90 degree inside corners for the seawall, just needs a little chamfer