[Surrey] Park Avenue | 124m & 118m | 36 & 40 Floors | Complete

[invisibleairwaves]

I think part of the problem is that downtown Whalley doesn't have any back lanes. It's kind of hard to have a good, continuous, pedestrian-friendly streetwall when it's constantly broken up by parking entrances and loading bays (see: Citypoint) because there's nowhere else for them to go. And the gigantic lot sizes just encourage tower-in-the-park projects and inward-facing retail (Park Place). The City really needs to start having some action on this "finer street grid" they keep talking about, and it has to include lanes.

[trofirhen]

Originally Posted by golog

I don't think density is the single solution. Jane & Finch in Toronto is a dense area of commie block apartments.

You have the harness the potential with walkability. Most people in Yaletown walk a lot. Foot traffic provides a ready market for storefronts, and provides a deterrence to crime among other things like making public transit feasible.

The thing I think we all are reaching for is a city form which shows maturity. One that makes sense at every scale, and throughout the lifetime of its residents or economic cycles. Something that has grown one step at a time where areas not only make sense introspectively, but in their connections to neighbouring areas.

You can't force the virtuous cycle from either the supply side (open a bunch of storefronts) or the demand side (build a bunch of apartments without parking stalls) without first optimizing the path geometry for the scale of walking to minimize distance and maximize potential destinations from any given point in the area under study. Smaller block sizes -- less developable land, more costs for road/sidewalk construction & maintenance, greater potential, serves a larger demographic market...

Until road congestion takes over or the market demand is exhausted, building to the car's scale is the most profitable option and gives the quickest growth for both the City of Surrey and developers. It's logical to expect a continuation of the policy to pocket the easy money, and then blame others for the predictable consequences for as long as the option of easy money lasts.

Your definition of Jane and Finch is so right on! It deserves the Grotesque Award for Apartment Complexes.

You mentioned it at the outset, but did not seem to connect it to the main body of your post. Could you maybe elaborate a bit on the statement you were making, or was that just given as a definition of density, and little else?

[invisibleairwaves]

Originally Posted by jhausner

Not to mention most of the West End doesn't have street level retail once you get off the main strips aka Davie or Robson or something. Move 1 block in and it is all residential buildings. People seem to forget that there aren't stores under every single building on every single block in downtown Vancouver.

You're most likely going to see a redevelopment of the Surrey Central mall to get rid of all the surface parking and then build a core or high rise buildings there with retail under. The focus seems to be on the ring roads from 102 -> 108th then KGB from 96th -> 108th. You'll probably find the bulk of developments on those stretches with retail street level. For side streets 100th is still the edge of downtown and really a small sliver not to mention this proposal fronts 100th ave more than anything as you start up the hill towards Guildford.

There will be more retail consentrations around 102, 104, 106, and 108th I'd imagine. Less beyond those ranges. Then again things can change quickly. But as I and a few others have said, not every development in downtown has ground level retail. It would be nice to see it in this development but Concord has never been outstanding at building commercial space based properties anyway. Good to see them build though and it seems like the buildings are a bit taller than the original development.

36 and 40 storey -> 39 and 42 storey.

Nobody's suggesting that every street should have a retail streetwall on every side of every project. The problem is that there aren't any continuous streetwalls in the city. 104th, 108th, City Parkway, King George, both ring roads...every one of those streets has had a very recent project or proposal without any retail. I'd be perfectly happy if the city was only mandating retail on certain streets, but it seems they aren't even going that far.

[Whalleyboy]

Originally Posted by invisibleairwaves

Nobody's suggesting that every street should have a retail streetwall on every side of every project. The problem is that there aren't any continuous streetwalls in the city. 104th, 108th, City Parkway, King George, both ring roads...every one of those streets has had a very recent project or proposal without any retail. I'd be perfectly happy if the city was only mandating retail on certain streets, but it seems they aren't even going that far.

I couldnt agree more. Surrey needs to make its own granville or robson street. As it stands the only area i see some possibility of it is city park way especially if they expanded it out in front of the mall like they plan. You'd get a good sold store fron area from old yale to 104. That equals out to about 8 blocks in Vancouver. Although i'd love to see it go all the way to 108 I know that wont happen.

[Millennium2002]

Frankly I think Central City may reduce the chances of that happening even further... the city will probably want that thing filled up before the high street gets built.

[invisibleairwaves]

Originally Posted by Whalleyboy

I couldnt agree more. Surrey needs to make its own granville or robson street. As it stands the only area i see some possibility of it is city park way especially if they expanded it out in front of the mall like they plan. You'd get a good sold store fron area from old yale to 104. That equals out to about 8 blocks in Vancouver. Although i'd love to see it go all the way to 108 I know that wont happen.

I agree about City Parkway, but if Whalley wants to consider itself as a serious downtown core, it's going to need a lot more than a single, relatively short retail street. Whalley Blvd. is another likely candidate, and Quattro has already started that process, but now there's this Sky Towers proposal interrupting that, right across the street from a Skytrain station no less. University Drive would have been another great one, but it's too built up already.

One thing that Whalley does have going for it is the fact that Central City Mall is very geographically constrained. It's not like Metrotown where it can just sprawl across a massive, unbroken block. Besides knocking down the parkades and expanding there, it can't get any bigger, so the retail demanded by a growing population will have to go elsewhere. The question is whether it'll be built in pedestrian-friendly streetwalls, or in awkward Park Place-style clusters scattered around the core (or worse, in a new shopping mall).

[SpongeG]

i could see it being like bellevue as the demand changes/grows they knock over a strip mall and replace with tower and podium retail - the safeway in whalley could become a tower with teh store at the base and have some of the street side smaller retail sort of like they have on hastings in north burnaby

[Whalleyboy]

Originally Posted by invisibleairwaves

I agree about City Parkway, but if Whalley wants to consider itself as a serious downtown core, it's going to need a lot more than a single, relatively short retail street. Whalley Blvd. is another likely candidate, and Quattro has already started that process, but now there's this Sky Towers proposal interrupting that, right across the street from a Skytrain station no less. University Drive would have been another great one, but it's too built up already.

One thing that Whalley does have going for it is the fact that Central City Mall is very geographically constrained. It's not like Metrotown where it can just sprawl across a massive, unbroken block. Besides knocking down the parkades and expanding there, it can't get any bigger, so the retail demanded by a growing population will have to go elsewhere. The question is whether it'll be built in pedestrian-friendly streetwalls, or in awkward Park Place-style clusters scattered around the core (or worse, in a new shopping mall).

I would fear the mall thought Surrey council already said no to berezan cause of his though of adding a mall to the base of his towers. They dont want anymore malls.

[invisibleairwaves]

Renderings are up at Civic Surrey. Yay, more white and beige towers!

[Metro-One]

source: http://www.civicsurrey.com/2011/06/27/concord-set-to-restart-sky-towers-project/concordskytowers4/

So has their height been reduced?

And what is that tall tower in the right of the rendering??

[invisibleairwaves]

Originally Posted by Metro-One

source: http://www.civicsurrey.com/2011/06/27/concord-set-to-restart-sky-towers-project/concordskytowers4/

So has their height been reduced?

And what is that tall tower in the right of the rendering??

That would be this 46-story beast.

The tower heights are 41- and 39- storeys, higher than the 2008 proposal, but I guess without the giant rooftop atrium they might be a little shorter than the original. Still pretty huge for Surrey though. The height is great, if not the architecture.

[Metro-One]

Oh I agree, a good addition indeed, but i sure hope that big guy gets built as well

[logan5]

When is there going to be some projects on King George Blvd? This seems like the logical starting point for the redevelopment of Whalley, yet all development (it seems) is tucked away behind parking lots, shopping malls, and Skytrain lines.

Considering that KGB gets by far the most exposure in Surrey, in my opinion, neglecting this main thorough fair is a poor way of selling Surrey to prospective tenants and, in turn, stunts its growth.

[Spork]

I think that it is a matter of filling out all of the empty lots. Once those are full, hopefully some of the old retailers will have space to shift around, value of surrounding lots will increase, and developers will start moving on those.

[GMasterAres]

Originally Posted by logan5

When is there going to be some projects on King George Blvd? This seems like the logical starting point for the redevelopment of Whalley, yet all development (it seems) is tucked away behind parking lots, shopping malls, and Skytrain lines.

Considering that KGB gets by far the most exposure in Surrey, in my opinion, neglecting this main thorough fair is a poor way of selling Surrey to prospective tenants and, in turn, stunts its growth.

I think you'll see things starting near the new City Hall. There was some word before and something on CivicSurrey a while back about the city wanting to buy up all the land and merge it all into more logical units that can be resold. Right now the parcels are all messed up between KGB and the new city hall and it makes it difficult if not impossible to redevelop well.

So that would be KGB between 102 and 104th so the heart of "downtown".

As for the rest, we'll see if Holande Pointe starts up again in the next few years that would be right on KGB. Surrey Central mall would be the next one and I believe there has to be additions to the mall before that can be done. They need to construct more parking facilities (underground or in a tower of some sort) so that all that parking land can be redeveloped similar to how they did for Pacific Center in Vancouver.

It will come. Same will have to happen where the Canadian Tires is currently. Need to replace that parking with something more condusive to a downtown core then you can redevelop the land. I think the city hall underground parking is part of that plan to replace the surface parking in the area.

[Whalleyboy]

Originally Posted by logan5

When is there going to be some projects on King George Blvd? This seems like the logical starting point for the redevelopment of Whalley, yet all development (it seems) is tucked away behind parking lots, shopping malls, and Skytrain lines.

Considering that KGB gets by far the most exposure in Surrey, in my opinion, neglecting this main thorough fair is a poor way of selling Surrey to prospective tenants and, in turn, stunts its growth.

Personally i think Surrey should look at copying Kelownas way of doing things. Instead of building on there main road they have there main DT streets/area off to just the side of it

[tybuilding]

It looks like this project may be starting again soon http://www.civicsurrey.com/2011/06/27/concord-set-to-restart-sky-towers-project/

[Cypherus]

What I notice with this project is that the towers' heights seems rather favorable for being outside the central city core. There is also no street life on 100 avenue. If the even more taller tower to the lot beside Sky towers gets built, Surrey's skyline will look even more strange. You will see from a distance a series of tall towers beside residential homes, parking lots, or sky train stations, with significant gaps in between other clusters of tall towers beside the sky train stations and parks / mall. There seems to be no plan to design a dome-like skyline with taller towers in the middle tapering to shorter towers near the future edges of the what will be the core.

[invisibleairwaves]

Originally Posted by Cypherus

What I notice with this project is that the towers' heights seems rather favorable for being outside the central city core. There is also no street life on 100 avenue. If the even more taller tower to the lot beside Sky towers gets built, Surrey's skyline will look even more strange. You will see from a distance a series of tall towers beside residential homes, parking lots, or sky train stations, with significant gaps in between other clusters of tall towers beside the sky train stations and parks / mall. There seems to be no plan to design a dome-like skyline with taller towers in the middle tapering to shorter towers near the future edges of the what will be the core.

Most cities around the world have pretty erratic skylines. Downtown Vancouver is the weird one, and personally I'd rather see a more organic skyline than the creepy, unnatural, micromanaged thing Vancouver has going on. Not much in the way of mountain views or scenery in Whalley, might as well let 'em build. The gaps will fill out in time.

[Whalleyboy]

Originally Posted by Cypherus

What I notice with this project is that the towers' heights seems rather favorable for being outside the central city core. There is also no street life on 100 avenue. If the even more taller tower to the lot beside Sky towers gets built, Surrey's skyline will look even more strange. You will see from a distance a series of tall towers beside residential homes, parking lots, or sky train stations, with significant gaps in between other clusters of tall towers beside the sky train stations and parks / mall. There seems to be no plan to design a dome-like skyline with taller towers in the middle tapering to shorter towers near the future edges of the what will be the core.

Surrey isnt going for a dome style sky line they're going for a node style with a node around each skytrain station. Central still will hold the highest tower due to there set height limits.