Downtown Vancouver Updates

[osirisboy]

Walked past the Hilton site on robson/cambie. They are in full force now with two of those pile drivers working away, huge excavator on site, and lots of construction workers around. Nice to see this project finally start.

[jlousa]

Are you sure they're piledrivers? There's been no excavation yet. I was under the impression they only had corers on site to take soil samples.

[osirisboy]

Hmm... yes pretty sure. it looked like way more than them taking soil samples. They were going systematically around the perimeter (they've been at this for the past few days), plus the huge excavator on site seems to suggest more than soil samples. Also signs on the fence saying "danger open excavation" seems like they are planning on doing some digging.

I need to start taking pics

[jlousa]

Interesting, I walked by this morning but it was still dark only noticed a bunch of pickups and what looked like shoring equipment. But I didn't look closely. I'll probably walk by tomorrow morning and take a better look.

[osirisboy]

They were doing the work along the cambie side, robson just had the parked trucks and excavator.

[Hed Kandi]

..

[Dylan Leblanc]

here

[Hed Kandi]

..

[giallo]

Yeah, it's pretty bad. Very mid-90s.

[vanman]

Haha, for once I agree with Hed Kandi. That is truly craptacular.

[PaperTiger]

But guys, there are trees on the podium. Trees! On the podium!
That is somes serious innovation right there.

[osirisboy]

Originally Posted by Hed Kandi

Vomit! That design is down right embarrassing and I refuse to post it.

oh relax, its not that bad although as mentioned earlier it would have been nice if the podium was taller to cover up the side of the adjacent office building.

[jlousa]

The reason the podium isn't taller is it needs to take into account that the neighbouring building will one day be redeveloped.

[osirisboy]

so?? they could still have had a podium of 5-6 floors

[officedweller]

Yeah, the trend in the area (Raffles across the street, TV Towers next door) is to taller podiums. It would have been better to have had a taller podium.

[wrenegade]

I mentioned this in the View Cone review thread, but I'll expand a bit on it here too. The Under Granville Bridge area (City PDF here) looks like it will have some action sooner rather than later. I saw plans (almost application-ready plans by the look of it) for re-development of the commercially planned areas in the plans (under the viaducts) and the westerly triangle site that was approved for up to 425' after the view cone review. The tower looks spectacular. Unlike anything Vancouver has ever seen (of course it would have to be approved), even moreso than Jameson House, the Crystal Tower (587 howe) or Vancouver's turn. Really cool stuff. Can't really say much more than that but I don't think it wil be too long until we see a formal application.

[Prometheus]

Originally Posted by wrenegade

I saw plans (almost application-ready plans by the look of it) for re-development of the commercially planned areas in the plans (under the viaducts) and the westerly triangle site that was approved for up to 425'.

What do you mean by the "westerly triangle site?" Are you actually suggesting the relatively small and currently occupied space between the main bridge and the Howe Street viaduct? Or the currently occupied area on the corner of Beach Avenue and Howe Street? Or did you mean to say the easterly triangle site on the east side of the Seymour Street viaduct (i.e., the empty triangular lot on the corner of Beach Crescent and Seymour Street)?

My guess is the tower you saw technically does not fall within the Under The Granville Bridge plan (which calls only for 1 to 4-storey buildings) but rather within one of the two "probable sites" for a higher building in the Granville Bridge Gateway zone identified under the revised General Policy for Higher Buildings.

See figure 1 on page 2 of Appendix B of the staff report on the proposed changes to the General Policy on Higher Buildings:

http://vancouver.ca/ctyclerk/cclerk/2010...itiesforHigherBuildingsintheDowntown.pdf

[jsbertram]

Looking at the City report, Pg 20, there is a 425 foot "possible site for development" at the corner of Beach & Howe, which is also a triangular space that is west of Granville St and also west of the Howe St viaduct.

The report suggests that a similar 425 foot building should be built on the east side of Granville & also east of the Seymour viaduct at what would be the intersection of Seymour and Beach to balance the western building at Beach & Howe.

[Prometheus]

Originally Posted by jsbertram

Looking at the City report, Pg 20, there is a 425 foot "possible site for development" at the corner of Beach & Howe, which is also a triangular space that is west of Granville St and also west of the Howe St viaduct.

The report suggests that a similar 425 foot building should be built on the east side of Granville & also east of the Seymour viaduct at what would be the intersection of Seymour and Beach to balance the western building at Beach & Howe.

Yeah, I just pointed out the the two sites you mention, including the area on the northeast corner of Beach Avenue and Howe Street, which is essentially rectangular.

[wrenegade]

The NE corner of Beach and Howe from Howe to the viaduct and from Beach to Pacific is essentially a triangle if you remove the lane. That is what I was referring to.