Downtown Vancouver Updates

[mooks28]

If you have to say you're world class; you're not world class.

It's exactly why Toronto isn't world class, either...

[SpongeG]

views from what and for who? 1% of the population? what about the 99% without views

[trofirhen]

Originally Posted by dleung

... And this world-class talk is embarrassing.

You got that right. I think Vancouver needs to shed some of its self-delusions.

[agrant]

Vancouver should strive to have class only. Much more attainable than 'world class'...

[Prometheus]

Originally Posted by cornholio

I am for maintaining the view cones, they simply allow for a better view for the majority of people.

No, they don't. This issue has been dealt with many times. The viewcones preserve narrow views from a small handful of locations and for a small minority of Vancouverites at any given time. The vast majority of private and public viewpoints in the city are either mostly or entirely unaffected by growth in the downtown core, and thus viewcones are irrelevant to most vantage points.

In effect, viewcones preserve views of mountains for very few while precluding views of soaring architecture for all.

[cc85]

There is plenty of other space in the City of Vancouver to build soaring architecture for all.

This endless discussion about how building height is the sole determinant in creating a great city is pathetic. It is really quite ignorant.

[trofirhen]

Originally Posted by cc85

There is plenty of other space in the City of Vancouver to build soaring architecture for all.

This endless discussion about how building height is the sole determinant in creating a great city is pathetic. It is really quite ignorant.

Could you perhaps state your point of view more precisely on this, elaborating, and giving an example?

[Vancity]

been reading on people's comments on being 'world class' - I have a question. Why do people consider Toronto as a 'world class city'? what makes it world class? the size of the city? the cultural diversity of the city? the professional sports teams it's got? I'm just curious...

Chicago, NY, HK, London, Paris, etc are all known as world class/global cities (perhaps?), what defines a city to be world class? I think it's hard to define...and it's true. a lot of friends of mine always seem to inquire about coming to Vancouver, and how I'm lucky to be living here, etc, etc. Weird how the citizens of each city seem to always be envious about another city.

[cc85]

Originally Posted by trofirhen

Could you perhaps state your point of view more precisely on this, elaborating, and giving an example?

You do not create a great city by focusing on height alone. There are other aspects, environmental, economic, and social items that help create wonderful societies, and in turn, cities.

What if we had a bunch of 50-storey office skyscrapers without any consideration for residential or recreation uses? Would that make us more liveable? Would it matter if these buildings had a great, inviting design? What about if they had a better design and were only 15 stories tall?

To think that you can focus on just developing tall buildings and believing this alone will create a magnificent city is astounding. How does LA fare as a city with some tall buildings? Does the significant amount of sprawl surrounding their CBD impact their liveability? Would constructing 10, 75-storey buildings change anything outside of bringing some more people into the core? Would it change your impression of the entire city? Would these changes encourage more people to visit LA? Would people in the city care about their new found wealth of tall buildings?

What I'm getting at is, semi-tall buildings are important for achieving critical amounts of density, but they are not the most important factor in creating a world-class city. If you want a world-class city, you would be better off smiling at people everyday.

[Prometheus]

Originally Posted by cc85

There is plenty of other space in the City of Vancouver to build soaring architecture for all.

That's totally false. The downtown core and Central Business District are the most appropriate and feasible places to build skyscrapers in a city. But, as was already pointed out to you, there are certainly plenty of other places in Vancouver from which to view the mountains than the tiny handful of designated viewpoints that fall within the viewcone program. Indeed, the vast majority of public spaces in Vancouver have views of the mountains that are either largely or entirely unaffected by vertical growth in the downtown core. These spaces include, but are not limited to, Coal Harbour, Stanley Park, Kitsilano Beach, Jericho Park, Locarno Beach, Spanish Banks, UBC, Crab Park, New Brighton Park, and just about every park in East Vancouver. Even the views from Queen Elizabeth Park (one of the designated viewpoints under the viewcone program) would be largely unaffected by unlimited growth in the downtown core.

The issue of the relationship between tall architecture and world class status (or civic greatness or liveability) is a red herring. I think a total of one person asserted a relationship between the two. In other words, no one is seriously making that argument. Thus, by refuting such an argument you have succeeded only in knocking down a straw man; you have not justified the existence of viewcones and their suppression of vertical growth and expression in the downtown core, since preserving views of mountains from every possible vantage point is no more a necessary condition of civic greatness or liveability than tall architecture is.

[TwoFace]

Originally Posted by cc85

What I'm getting at is, semi-tall buildings are important for achieving critical amounts of density, but they are not the most important factor in creating a world-class city. If you want a world-class city, you would be better off smiling at people everyday.

Your correct, building height has no barring on anything world class.
All you have to do is look at the world class cities of Europe to understand that quality of life trumps density every time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyE1lCpHtio

[officedweller]

Over at Frances Bula's blog, someone commented that the parkade at Pender and Beatty is being closed. Anyone know what's going in?

[jlousa]

Don't beleive it is, they literally just spent a bucket load of money on repairs and are still working on it now. Which would be counter productive if it's getting demoed.

[peterprinciple]

Here's a novel idea...or not. Hotels with car rental partners located at the hotel.

[SpongeG]

u mean like a budget desk at the holiday inn? they had those years ago

[SpongeG]

not sure where this fits so will stick it here....

Parking being squeezed out in Vancouver

FRANCES BULA
VANCOUVER— Special to Globe and Mail Update
Published Monday, Jan. 30, 2012 5:09PM EST

At Graham McGarva’s architecture firm, only five of the 20 employees commute to work by car. And that’s a high ratio compared with other workplaces nearby.

So he knew already that office parking downtown was becoming less of an essential item.

But the point was really driven home when his firm, VIA Architecture, went to work on a new office tower that will face the city’s former train station, now its top transportation hub for commuter rail and buses.

The owner of the site, at 320 Granville, is tearing down a 50-year-old parking garage that is becoming less profitable every year. And, in the new 32-storey office tower that will be built in its place and likely house as many as 1,800 people, Mr. McGarva is including only 133 parking spots – less than half of what would have been required two decades ago and a quarter of the norm in the 1960s.

He’s not the only one – other office builders in Vancouver are doing the same. “We’re all seeing different aspects of that trend,” Mr. McGarva says.

“In the old days,” says Vancouver’s planning director, Brent Toderian, “they would have had to not only build the parking required for the new construction” – about 300 stalls – “but you would have had to replace the parking of the old garage.” In this case, the parkade that will be torn down has about 500 spaces.

Vancouver’s 1997 transportation plan capped downtown parking and banned new roads. Since then, the number of car trips and parking spots has gradually declined, even while the number of jobs and overall trips in the central city have increased.

Back then, the parking standard was one stall for every 1,000 to 1,500 square feet. Today the figure is far less – and negotiable for every building. That’s in spite of the fact that today’s buildings hold twice as many people in these open-plan, cost-cutting times.

Last year marked a big change in parking behaviour as commuters responded to a new 35-per-cent tax on parking stalls in commercial lots, higher on-street parking costs, and the new Richmond-to-Vancouver rapid-transit line built for the Olympics that has proven to be a huge hit with the downtown crowd.

Parking revenue collected at city-owned garages dropped by 9 per cent, while funds from on-street parking, traditionally an ever-increasing moneymaker, did not rise as much as the city’s finance department had been counting on.

...

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on...queezed-out-in-vancouver/article2319946/

[Built Form]

Hoarding is going up around the former seniors centre at 411 Dunsmuir. Since the seniors sold it to CRS a complete facelift both in and out is in the works. They're looking for new office and retail tenants.



Here's the after rendition. Restored cornice; don't know if that's the historic original but it'll look better. New windows and upgraded CRUs.


pix by Built Form

[jlousa]

Hope Frenchie's stays though. I agree the render looks great, can't decide if I like the awnings.

I walked by there this weekend and a few of the planters were destroyed, I imagine by a car, didn't seem like they provided any safety to bikers, luckily I don't think anyone was hit.

[Prometheus]

Originally Posted by jlousa

...can't decide if I like the awnings.

I can. They look dumb. Putting material awnings on a stone/brick heritage building always looks stupid and cheapens the building's statliness.

[entheosfog]

Originally Posted by Built Form

Hoarding is going up around the former seniors centre at 411 Dunsmuir. Since the seniors sold it to CRS a complete facelift both in and out is in the works. They're looking for new office and retail tenants.



Here's the after rendition. Restored cornice; don't know if that's the historic original but it'll look better. New windows and upgraded CRUs.


pix by Built Form

Not quite exactly as original...
Here's what it looked like in 1929, photo from the Vancouver Archives:

sans awnings looks much better, in my opinion...

http://vancouver.ca/ctyclerk/archives/index.htm