General Vancouver Updates

[Prometheus]

Originally Posted by logan5

With regard to these new residential buildings along Cambie, it seems like a major mistake having no street level retail, especially when you're only steps away from a C line station.

Vancouver has been that way for some time now. A major factor is the city's property tax structure, which substantially diminishes the business case for building and leasing small commercial real estate versus residential real estate.

[wrenegade]

It was never part of the long-term plan to expand the Cambie Village. Residents were opposed to any and all development between 19th & 23rd and there was no desire to add retail between King Ed and 39th.

Between 41st and 49th however, continuous retail frontage is required. Personally I think this is a mistake. There are countless examples all over Vancouver where CRUs sit empty in the bottom of new buildings, not to mention in this particular area they will have to compete with a newly expanded Oakridge Centre and its 1,000,000+ sq. ft. of retail space.

[logan5]

Originally Posted by wrenegade

It was never part of the long-term plan to expand the Cambie Village. Residents were opposed to any and all development between 19th & 23rd and there was no desire to add retail between King Ed and 39th.

Between 41st and 49th however, continuous retail frontage is required. Personally I think this is a mistake. There are countless examples all over Vancouver where CRUs sit empty in the bottom of new buildings, not to mention in this particular area they will have to compete with a newly expanded Oakridge Centre and its 1,000,000+ sq. ft. of retail space.

Those residents around king ed station will be long gone. Their houses replaced with high density and medium density away from the station. No new shops and sevices for all this new density.

It does seem backwards to have retail between 41st and 49th and none between 25th and 33rd, much further away from the mall.

[officedweller]

Agree that there should be more retail. Without small pockets of retain on the corners - you won't even have the coffee culture taking root...

[easy as pie]

yeah, which instantly reduces the walkability of the neighborhood. like if you can't even pick up a few essentials from a corner shop smack in the center of the largest city west of ontario, where are you?

[officedweller]

Pic by me Sunday - 6th & Fir:



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by logan5

Those residents around king ed station will be long gone. Their houses replaced with high density and medium density away from the station. No new shops and sevices for all this new density.

It does seem backwards to have retail between 41st and 49th and none between 25th and 33rd, much further away from the mall.

The long strips of retail along the arterials area a "mistake" a legacy of the streetcar. It doesn't make for good walkable neighbourhoods. Think about going shopping along Main Street, its one long ribbon stretched all the way from Broadway to 33rd. The city would much better to encourage some depth of retail around specific nodes. Lets see if they get it right at the Pearson lands.

[officedweller]

Vancouvermarket.ca reports on a rezoning application for Stong's Market on Dunbar:

Rezoning Proposed for Stongs on Dunbar

Posted on August 27, 2013

The owners of the Stongs property at 4508-4560 Dunbar Street have applied to the City of Vancouver to rezone the property, and an adjacent single family lot from C-2 and RS-5 and to CD.


The proposed project includes:
■on the Dunbar Street site, a 6-storey mixed use building with new Stongs (20,124 SF) and two smaller commercial units on the first level and 72 condo units (74,935 SF) above the store.
■on the West 30th Avenue property, 11 3-storey townhouses (12,579 SF)
■a public plaza at the northeast corner of Dunbar Street and West 30th Avenue;
■a combined density of 2.51FSR
■234 vehicle parking spaces, three loading spaces and 111 class A bicycle spaces (each site includes two levels of underground parking).

http://www.vancouvermarket.ca/2013/08/27/rezoning-proposed-for-stongs-on-dunbar/

http://former.vancouver.ca/commsvcs/planning/rezoning/applications/4508-4560dunbar/index.htm

[hollywoodnorth]

looks like the Westbank project on Kingsway (ex Cantire) has a name and site and will be going to sales this fall .... I imagine it will be multi phased ... 2 or 3.

http://www.kensingtongardens.ca/

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by hollywoodnorth

looks like the Westbank project on Kingsway (ex Cantire) has a name and site and will be going to sales this fall .... I imagine it will be multi phased ... 2 or 3.

http://www.kensingtongardens.ca/

Kensington Gardens? Another ballsy but laughable name.

[jlousa]

What's wrong with the name? It's east of Naniamo so it falls in the Kenningston area.

*l* meant to say west of Naniamo.

[Kapten]

Originally Posted by jlousa

What's wrong with the name? It's east of Naniamo so it falls in the Kenningston area.

The project address is actually 2220 Kingsway, so technically it's *west* of Nanaimo and *east* of Victoria.

It appears that future residents will be located in a building that's reasonably close to the Nanaimo Skytrain station (10-15 minute walk) and also served by the #19 and #20 trolley buses.

[jlousa]

Fixed my typo. meant to say it's west of Naniamo which is the boundary for Keningstone. East of Naniamo is Collingwood.
There's also the #25 bus right there.

[Prometheus]

Here is the latest version of the project on the southeast corner of 12th & Cambie, as reported by changingcitybook.com:


http://changingcitybook.com/2013/09/12/2806-cambie-street/

[jlousa]

Imo they keep getting worse with each proposal, the first one was probably the best.

[phesto]

Yikes! And here I thought the original architect was the problem.

[s211]

Good gracious. That site must be cursed by now.

[wrenegade]

Jeee-zus! They really can't seem to get it right on that site. Honestly I don't know that any of them have been much good. I think in a perfect world the site should develop east-west along West 12th to balance City Hall with 6 storeys on either corner and 8 storeys in the middle, and then have a 4 storey building south of the lane along 13th to transition to the single family homes. This might be one of those areas where the heritage homes have to be sacrificed.

[dreambrother808]

It's like 3 different UBC buildings mashed together! The weird factor appeals to me.

[BodomReaper]

Thank you for the udpate. What exactly do people here dislike about this iteration of the Cambie and 12th project? IMO it's is a huge improvement over the previous clumsy design. Interesting massing.