Quote:
Originally Posted by The_Henry_Man
Agreed. At least they didn't cave into that lunatic Gordon Price. Getting the feds to contribute to greater proportion of the funds (say around 60-65% of the total cost) for the M-Line extension will be the biggest factor.
But to be honest, when's the last time the COV really focused on luring big companies back to downtown core and set up HQ here (I understand, it's going to be tough. High real estate price is already one), as a core city policy? But it's good start they're starting to build several business-only skyscrapers, such as Telus Gardens/Bentall 6, to stop our city's slide to a resort town. But I don't think the architects or city planners have gone far enough. Instead, what I really would love to see is build 700+ft business skyscrapers similar to IDS Tower in downtown Minneapolis (57 floors). Even just one or two is already good enough, and goes a long way to really improve our skyline.
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The City of Vancouver's powers with regards to job creation are quite limited, although I suppose we could say the same thing about the City's role with making the Broadway extension a reality.
The COV could definitely put a bigger focus on its job creation aspirations, but that would probably lie with:
1) cutting business property taxes
2) cutting down on the red tape (i.e. Old Stock Exchange vs. nearby residents)
3) promotion
The power lies with the provincial government...they could make the Broadway Line happen if they really wanted to. Just like Gateway, BC Place, and the convention centre. And the same can be said about job creation, that the province has the tools required to drive back business into BC/Vancouver....just like how one previous provincial government used these tools to drive businesses and jobs out of the province in the 1990s.
I've said this before but the provincial government has largely played the role of giving Vancouver the great things it's known for and for also spurring the city's economy.
- Expo 86
- every SkyTrain line
- BC Place, Canada Place
- convention centre
- Olympics
- further spurring the city's real estate industry, beginning with its sales of the Expo lands to Li Ka Shing for redevelopment
- the PNE as an entertainment institution
The only things I can think of that comes to anywhere equivalent to any of these that the City of Vancouver has been directly responsible for is Library Square (Gordon Campbell) and the three bridges that cross False Creek today. And maybe the Olympic Village, although I see that more as a catalyst of the provincial government.
The next City of Vancouver driven project of any equivalence would be the streetcar.
If I had a wish list for building development projects, it would be (in no particular order, and does not include transport infrastructure):
- 400-700 foot office/hotel/retail buildings on Bay parkade site
- 400-700 foot office/hotel/retail buildings at old Canada Post
- Massive new 500,000 square foot VAG at Larwill Park
- Renovated and expanded (under Georgia Plaza) VAG courthouse building at Robson for the new home of the Museum of Vancouver. Including the filling/removal of the Robson Square pit where the ice rink is, to create a flat and large at-grade plaza that is covered by a glass roof similar to the proposed clam shell glass roof or the old Plaza of Nations roof. Seriously, we have to start realizing that the weather is only nice here about 5 months of the year max. BTW, Bing Thom's proposal to turn the VAG courthouse building into a performing arts centre will only make the building dead except when people are going in/out of events held there.
- 400-800 foot office/hotel/retail buildings at the Waterfront Station hub redevelopment precinct. The tallest tower, a 800-foot office building, would give the Vancouver skyline the same signature feel that the 2 IFC building gives to the Hong Kong skyline (it's the tallest in the skyline). The area will also include: the large indoor glass roofed transit concourse and bus street behind the Waterfront Station building, as proposed by the City; an expansion of the Vancouver Convention Centre along the water immediately east of Canada Place, with more meeting rooms, ballrooms, another exhibition hall, and a 1,800-seat theatre; a 30,000-seat stadium for the Whitecaps; and new passenger ferry terminals for new passenger-only BC Ferries services to the Island, SeaBus, and private ferry services.
- the approval of PAVCO's full vision for the casino-hotel-entertainment complex west of BC Place
- a new hotel complex at the Westin Bayshore, including a 600-foot tower
- further densification of the West End, replacing aging buildings and low-rises, with buildings ranging from 300-500 feet
- A 2,000-seat performing arts centre taking a portion of the ridiculously large and useless but planned Creekside Park extension
- the expansion of Science World to increase its size by 50%, to accommodate the new and merged home of the H.R. Macmillan Space Centre. The Vanier Park building will be utilized for another museum purpose. This would require taking up some of Creekside Park.
- adding a lot more restaurants, bars, and pubs along our waterfront parks. The seawall and our waterfront parks are otherwise designed solely as an obligation to exercise. They are highly inactive and unexciting places to be when the weather turns cold. I'm not against public space, I'm just against public space that is poorly designed, uncreative, and not well-used during most of the year. I don't buy in that Downtown Vancouver needs more green lawn public space, that there's some silly arbitrary green space quota to be met.
- further densification of the Broadway Corridor, with buildings ranging from 6-30 storeys.
- the completion of the seawall at Kitsilano
- to fulfill the "entertainment" concept of an "entertainment district" around BC Place/Rogers Arena/QE Theatre, the construction of bars, nightclubs, and pubs in and under the viaducts and the new highrises that weave themselves into the viaducts
- Plaza of Nations site: to maintain the "entertainment district" concept, the lower levels (on the podium) will be nothing other than restaurants, bars, nightclubs, and pubs (a continuation of the same thing at the viaducts, described above). Above the podiums are exclusively office towers (that do not significantly impede on views of BC Place) ranging from 10-30 storeys. The office traffic will keep pedestrian activity flow during the day, and the vacant offices won't be an issue for all the night time activity. On the edge of the water will be a glass covered outdoor plaza and amphitheatre.
- Rogers Arena towers....no longer rental buildings, replaced as exclusively office and a hotel. It will not impede on the activities of Rogers Arena nor night time activity in the area. At the base of the towers, more restaurants and bars.
- add a 40-storey, 500,000 square foot office building to International Village mall. Along with a prominent retail anchor, it'll bring much more pedestrian traffic to the mall - will bring real and some "serious" retailers to the mall in hopes of turning this into Downtown Vancouver's second "serious" mall after Pacific Centre. In addition, major office developments will be encouraged nearby to provide more pedestrian activity (developments through the preservation of heritage facades or even the whole building itself and then adding floors on top - like the old Stock Exchange, on the extreme, or that development on Beatty). Like it or not, Downtown is growing eastward and this would all be part of the DTES/Chinatown transition and rebirth.
- another elementary school somewhere in Downtown within a mid-rise building or on a podium of a tower (see NYC's recently built elementary school for 600 kids at 8 Spruce St). The enrollment demand is high in Downtown Vancouver. A true urban school, like the ones in New York. If it's a mid-rise, green/outdoor space will be on the rooftop.
- Lonsdale in North Vancouver: a 200,000 square foot National Maritime Museum at the Pier to replace the dinky museum at Kitsilano
- the doubling in size of the Vancouver Aquarium in Stanley Park, expanding on the grounds the Stanley Park Zoo once stood on
- in the very, very, very long-term: relocation of the Port of Vancouver facilities in Vancouver to new terminal facilities and infrastructure at the port in Tsawwassen. Money from lands sold at Downtown port will be used to build the new port in Tsawwassen. In place of the old port (which begins with the westernmost part of the port's railyard), the expansion of the Vancouver skyline...the next generation's North False Creek, with a touch of Yaletown through the conversion of some of the old/historic port buildings into other usages. They could even keep a few of the massive red port cranes, maintain them as centrepieces of public/green space below.
- Queen Elizabeth Park: the construction of the observation tower that was rejected by NIMBYs a few years ago; and the restoration of the Bloedel Conservatory to become a world-class bird aviary and research centre.
- Langara Golf Course into a City Zoo: Langara Golf Course re-purposed into a world-class 120-acre zoo operated with the same non-profit education/conservation/research-based business plan as the Vancouver Aquarium. Animals will largely come from the closure of the Greater Vancouver Zoo. And since we seem to be on the way towards having a close and friendly relationship with China, playing with international panda diplomacy one of the zoo's feature attraction will be pandas. :p
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Poetic justice I say.
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