Quote:
Originally Posted by Vin
The area would have a huge demand for retail in the next few years when all the condos are completed in the vicinity. The only reason why the retail sector was so slow to take root initially in the Olympic village area was because of a lack of residents moving in due to insane condo prices in the city-built development. However, my understanding of the latter phase condos built by other developers is that they are selling relatively well, meaning there would definitely be way more people moving there in the near future.
The area is served by an inter city train and bus terminal, and a sky train station nearby, and coupled with the tram system and new UBC sky train line planned for the future, would create an excellent node for a retail/commercial centre for that neighbourhood. In fact, a multi-storied mall, hotels or even office towers should be in the works as well, before too many residents move in and nimbyism takes root. But then again I am ahead of myself here.
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Have you ever seen the Crown Casino in Melbourne or The Sands Casino in Singapore? Both are located in the CBD area, with mostly decent folks and tourists as patrons. Both have really tight onsite security and are adjoined by mid to high end retail malls, international food courts, centres and markets. Above the casino and mall podiums are international class hotels, etc. They are truly world class facilities, unlike the doom and gloom that people in the Lower Mainland like to envision (too many drug-related gang banger types here perhaps?).
As for street retail, I think we have enough of that spread all over the place. It does not make sense for a rainy city to just have street retail. There should be a combo of street and multi-storied type indoor retail with decent mall architecture and open plazas, not just another boxy and bland type found everywhere in the Lower mainland. For inspiration, look no further than the recently upgraded downtown Calgary mall the Core: truly world class!
Vancouver has to think bigger.
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Ding ding ding! I like your thinking, Vancouver still has this weird thing with residential-only taking root everywhere. And I definitely agree that our waterfront spaces are most certainly being underutilized with uncreative developments, residential-only, large swaths of green lawn parks, a seawall that's purely an obligation to exercise and nothing more.... sadly, the Olympic Village area perpetuates this even more, developers are much more notorious here and want quick profits.
False Creek is essentially a private community with all the condos it has rather than being built with commercial activity and major attractions, which I see as a public good as it actually brings people there, and creates things that people enjoy beyond parks and a seawall.
False Creek could have been just like Singapore's Marina Bay or Melbourne's Yarra River - an active cultural and commercial hub. But I suppose most Vancouverites don't really know any better to expect more, nor can they want it if they can't imagine it. Our egoistic and less-than-sophisticated city planners aren't able to think outside of the box either.
I've long complained that we need more/larger shopping malls here. I took a look at what The Core in Calgary looks like and architecturally it looks stunning with its airy design, quite a contrast to the Pacific Centre tight basement bunker - it is sad that this is the one and only "major" mall in Downtown Vancouver, and the only other remotely respectable "mall" in Vancouver is all the way at Oakridge.
Sure, you might have 3 or 4 months of good weather in a year but is that really the basis we're designing this city around? Because if it is it makes zero sense. Robson and Granville retail streets grow relatively quiet whenever it rains or gets cold while malls like Pacific Centre are packed with people looking for a dry and warm shopping experience. Downtown still specializes in shops you can't find elsewhere in the region, but it has lost so much of the market share of being "the place" for everything you need by allowing the suburbs to leap frog with their huge malls.
That said, not sure if the Olympic Village area would be a good place for a mall. I think it would have to be tied in with a huge attraction like a massive casino/hotel/entertainment destination plus offices just like the Crown Melbourne (or a smaller version of Marine Bay Sands - wow!). But Vancouver normally doesn't do economies of scale - nothing here does, not even transportation infrastructure. But we all know what happened with the original BC Place casino, which was hardly a "big" proposal in a global sense... it's still a provincial town that doesn't like to learn/look at what other cities around the world have done.
At the very least, they could've had some street front retailing for this newest Southeast False Creek proposal. It might not do well today and might sit empty for a few years or with less-than-ideal shops and restaurants, but we're talking about the future here which nobody seems to think about. The proposed development also looks too cookie-cutter and height (if the actual city-funded Olympic Village had condo towers, sales probably would have done better).
I'd still argue that there's far too much green space in the False Creek area... well, not necessarily "too much" but too much of the same green lawn type. Can we not be more creative than that?
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