Millennium Line - Broadway Extension: Planning & Pre-Construction

[usog]

Promising UBC skytrain in the way he has may get him votes, but I wonder what will happen when he will be unable to deliver...

[Chadillaccc]

Originally Posted by GlassCity

I know, but when I think tower I think like 100m+. More towers similar in scale to the ones already there would be fine by me.

Well, there are already two towers on Broadway over 75 meters, with another proposed... so I mean I guess I just don't see the harm in one or two 100 - 110 meter towers.

[djh]

Originally Posted by Chadillaccc

Well, there are already two towers on Broadway over 75 meters, with another proposed... so I mean I guess I just don't see the harm in one or two 100 - 110 meter towers.

The likelihood is that any substantial towers will be huddled near or around the stations - i.e., Main, Cambie, Oak, Granville, Arbutus, etc. In-between will probably be mid-rises.

The mid-rise developments have already started along west Broadway and have infinitely improved the streetscape, quality of retail and street activity. These building are in the correct scale to the width of the road (6-lane arteries look fine with a 4-6 storey streetwall and a ~10-12 storey point tower). So if this process continues I'll be very happy.

At the actual stations, I would expect full-block or half-block developments, probably small, mid-size or large-sized retail for ground floor (anything from Starbucks-sized to supermarket-sized), a few floors of commercial (e.g., a regional office or two, medical offices, legal and such), and then point towers up to say 15-20 storeys.

[GlassCity]

Originally Posted by Chadillaccc

Well, there are already two towers on Broadway over 75 meters, with another proposed... so I mean I guess I just don't see the harm in one or two 100 - 110 meter towers.

To be honest I have a hard time visualizing these heights, I was just tossing out a random number. I don't really know how to explain what I want: Maybe towers around the height of Ottawa's, but not quite so dense? I think the low rise buildings similar to Granville Street's make it an interesting alternative to downtown as a nice walking strip.

[LotusLand]

Originally Posted by jhausner

This is why:


Disclaimer, I don't know if that is actually true or would truthfully happen this go around, but I was just explaining the face palm. For my own personal opinion I actually like Mayor Gregor because all the stuff he has pulled in the last nearly decade have all been a boon for the cities outside Vancouver. So if he is in power another 4 years I have no doubt he will do silly things that make Vancouver even less relevant regionally giving more power, growth, and expansion to cities like Burnaby, Coquitlam, Richmond, and Surrey.

Yes, quite the boom in Surrey going on over there. I counted more construction cranes in South Vancouver than in Whalley.

Twitter, Facebook, the accomodation of Hootsuite's new head office with 400 and growing work force. Wow, Vancouver sure is 🞵🞵🞵 backwards when bringing in tech companies. Not to mention Microsoft, Amazon laying down pretty decent roots in the city. Tech is the future and Vancouver has done well here. Did the mayor have anything to do with it? He keeps trumping tech, people hear that, the rest manifests in itself.

I haven't even begun to talk about the growing VFX scene here and the gaming scene, although not as robust as it used to be, is also seeing a resurgence as small studios are once again starting to sprout up.

Vancouver for the most part took the Telus head office from Burnaby.

Vancouver passed the Oakridge redevelopment. It's currently developing the far South East Corner.

Growing food scene. Check.
Growing food cart scene. Check
Growing craft beer scene. Have you been to East Van lately? Check.

Emergence of new neighbourhoods? Railtown, Olympic Village. Check and check.

People complain that the city is expensive, but those that want to live here, find a way to make it work. They hustle, they network and if a door shuts in their face, they make their own. The entrepreneur scene here is growing and it's got a solid foundation of support with co-working and incubators popping up all over.

Don't worry buddy, keep drinking the remnants of Ms. Watts kool-aid. Vancouver will be fine and is on the path to becoming a better city and if the Broadway subway gets approved, it will spur a lot of economic activity in what is already the 2nd largest employment area in B.C.

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by Alpine

http://www.straight.com/news/639376/broadway-subway-wont-bring-big-towers-vancouver-mayor-says
Face, meet palm.

Gregor is doing his job in trying to sway the opinion of decision-makers towards the Broadway line. Facepalms would be appropriate only if he wasn't doing this.

Originally Posted by jhausner

People around Science World complaining about the noise of Indy Cars racing around their city for 3 days out of an entire year when they chose to live in a major city core decades ago.

Have you actually heard how loud those things are in person? I don't live anywhere near there, but I sure feel for the people who had to put up with it...

Originally Posted by LotusLand

Vancouver for the most part took the Telus head office from Burnaby.

...after a several decades of exile. They ended up in Burnaby because in the 70's they threatened to take their office elsewhere unless the City caved to their development demands and Art Philips called their bluff. So they ended up building their head office as close to Vancouver as possible without actually being in it.

You're absolutely right - all the moaning and gnashing of teeth about how Vancouver's policies are driving away business are, in fact, attracting it.

[spm2013]

Actually nevermind, this is off-topic. Removing my reply.

[makr3trkr]

Originally Posted by LotusLand

Emergence of new neighbourhoods? Railtown, Olympic Village. Check and check.

I've been through Olympic Village quite a few times.

It's a wonderful area and I would love to live there, but a lot of the marketing fluff about an "engaging and dynamic village community" rings hollow.

I doubt that anyone is really talking to each other a great deal more than people who live in McMansions out in suburbia.

...

back on topic --- it would be interesting to see alternate ideas for funding of the Broadway line.

obviously government at all levels needs to be involved, but I'm wondering if private investors could be enticed too

[dleung]

6-8 stories, 2 blocks deep, all along Broadway/10th on either side will generate more ridership than all the current lines in Vancouver combined. No need for towers.

[SFUVancouver]

Originally Posted by dleung

6-8 stories, 2 blocks deep, all along Broadway/10th on either side will generate more ridership than all the current lines in Vancouver combined. No need for towers.

So what chance do you think there is of that occurring?

[logan5]

Where are we gonna build these towers or low rise or whatever? Seems like the Broadway corridor is pretty much built out. There's the Jericho lands and the Endowment Lands, but other than that, where are all these new residents from the KPMG report going to live?

[Genauso]

Originally Posted by SFUVancouver

So what chance do you think there is of that occurring?

I'm curiously awaiting the redevelopment of the 50 year old 4 story walkups all over the city. As a group they probably have as many units as detached homes, or condo towers. (They may have an elevator but it's usually small/slow)

It has barely started to happen, but a good example might be on Arbutus St at 33rd. On the west side near the school are the older version apartment buildings, and on the east side near the park are a newer version that are a bit taller, with a lot more parking, better landscaping, nicer finishing, newer HVAC and elevators... But overall the feel is the same and I don't think there was a NIMBY ruckus that you could almost count on in a younger neighborhood.

The other clear model is the area around Metrotown where the wood frame walkups are being replaced by towers. All the Kerrisdale towers were once walkups but many walkups continue to exist alongside them. On Granville and Oak streets they're becoming row houses. 2-4 new units replacing each old one even though there isn't a tower.

[SFUVancouver]

Originally Posted by logan5

Where are we gonna build these towers or low rise or whatever? Seems like the Broadway corridor is pretty much built out. There's the Jericho lands and the Endowment Lands, but other than that, where are all these new residents from the KPMG report going to live?

Redevelopment. Development along the UBC Line won't be greenfield.

[AMTDGT]

Originally Posted by aberdeen5698

Gregor is doing his job in trying to sway the opinion of decision-makers towards the Broadway line. Facepalms would be appropriate only if he wasn't doing this.

Disagree..I am not sure that Greggie baby is doing anything right

[/QUOTE]Have you actually heard how loud those things are in person? I don't live anywhere near there, but I sure feel for the people who had to put up with it...[/QUOTE]

Disagree we live right beside the the track and miss the race. The folk festival up where we lived before we moved down town was a bigger imposition

[/QUOTE]...after a several decades of exile. They ended up in Burnaby because in the 70's they threatened to take their office elsewhere unless the City caved to their development demands and Art Philips called their bluff. So they ended up building their head office as close to Vancouver as possible without actually being in it.[/QUOTE]

Partially disagree. BC Tel didn't accept a deal to add a sky train station to their building and in the early 2000 they sold the boot.They rent it today. Much of Telus Plaza is network switching, with some office space, and a bunch of residential to pay for Greggie Baby's taxes. The building has to be there for the switching and transport equipment.

[/QUOTE]You're absolutely right - all the moaning and gnashing of teeth about how Vancouver's policies are driving away business are, in fact, attracting it.[/QUOTE]

Disagree My wife's company is moving out of Vancouver as soon as their down town ease is up. My daughters firm is also looking at that option.

BTW I do support the UBC extension of the Milli line

[VancouverOfTheFuture]

when/if they build this extension i really hope it comes from VCC-Clark and NOT Commercial. it would be weird to have it branch off to create a 2nd western terminus and having 1 station, VCC-Clark, after that branch. it would make a ton more sense to just move the terminus to UBC.

[GlassCity]

Originally Posted by VancouverOfTheFuture

when/if they build this extension i really hope it comes from VCC-Clark and NOT Commercial. it would be weird to have it branch off to create a 2nd western terminus and having 1 station, VCC-Clark, after that branch. it would make a ton more sense to just move the terminus to UBC.

I think this option is pretty much guaranteed.

[Jebby]

Originally Posted by VancouverOfTheFuture

when/if they build this extension i really hope it comes from VCC-Clark and NOT Commercial. it would be weird to have it branch off to create a 2nd western terminus and having 1 station, VCC-Clark, after that branch. it would make a ton more sense to just move the terminus to UBC.

I don't think I've seen any proposal in the past few years that would suggest otherwise.

[SFUVancouver]

Originally Posted by Genauso

I'm curiously awaiting the redevelopment of the 50 year old 4 story walkups all over the city. As a group they probably have as many units as detached homes, or condo towers. (They may have an elevator but it's usually small/slow)

I've been thinking about this, too. The issue of the city's aging stock of walk-up apartment buildings are going to come to ahead in the relatively near future. My hunch is that there will be a program launched to bonus up the properties when they are redeveloped in order to retain the number of rental units while simultaneously making the properties' redevelopment economically viable. My hunch is that 6 or even 8 storeys will become to norm for the redevelopment of these walk-ups in order to preserve their rental units. The alternative is to allow them to fall into disrepair and sink progressively lower on the quality scale. I would imagine neighbours would ultimately prefer a taller or more bulky neighbour than a run-down tenement.

[trofirhen]

Originally Posted by VancouverOfTheFuture

when/if they build this extension i really hope it comes from VCC-Clark and NOT Commercial. it would be weird to have it branch off to create a 2nd western terminus and having 1 station, VCC-Clark, after that branch. it would make a ton more sense to just move the terminus to UBC.

Originally Posted by GlassCity

I think this option is pretty much guaranteed.

Originally Posted by Jebby

I don't think I've seen any proposal in the past few years that would suggest otherwise.

For my it would indeed seem weird having 2 termini like that. I've been thinking about this too, which is only why I mention it.
Of course if we really wanted to get sophisticated about all this, we might continue on past VCC-Clark to connect west AND due west from Commercial to make sort of along flat oval "loop"( no, not exactly a loop, then bifurcation> rejoinment (I'm forgetting my English, sorry). Every other train going straight west/east, every other train going via VCC-Clark then reconnecting to the mainline.
Something like that might happen in Japan or such, but not here, I think.

Originally Posted by SFUVancouver

I've been thinking about this, too. The issue of the city's aging stock of walk-up apartment buildings are going to come to ahead in the relatively near future. My hunch is that there will be a program launched to bonus up the properties when they are redeveloped in order to retain the number of rental units while simultaneously making the properties' redevelopment economically viable. My hunch is that 6 or even 8 storeys will become to norm for the redevelopment of these walk-ups in order to preserve their rental units. The alternative is to allow them to fall into disrepair and sink progressively lower on the quality scale. I would imagine neighbours would ultimately prefer a taller or more bulky neighbour than a run-down tenement.

En bref, what I see all that "translate" into, is what one could call a "European" density. Getting away from all that Paris and Stockholm beauty 🞵🞵🞵🞵, I think what you may be talking about is middle to middle-high densities. Not only in Europe, but anywhere cities have such densities; if you crunch the numbers it shows.
And yes, the changes you talk about will come about. In densifying, I think the really KEY element, at least in aesthetic-sensitive Vancouver, it's how it looks, first, and how it feels, resultingly. Vancouver has the talent, if it hires the right architects, to do this well, I am sure.

[logan5]

Re 3 story walk-ups..

If the city is trying to preserve industrial land along the Broadway corridor, then they certainly should be trying to preserve the 3 story walk-ups which provide affordable rental housing.

As far as redevelopment goes, industrial land gets the least amount of protests from residents, so even though the city says they are trying to preserve industrial land, I can't see how the Broadway corridor will increase its population without redeveloping the industrial areas. What's worse for the Broadway corridor, moving light industry jobs to the suburbs, or moving residents, who can't afford new condo mortgage or rents, out to the suburbs?

The Mt. Pleasant industrial lands could accommodate 20 000 residents and would be well served by 5 rapid transit stations from 3 different lines (including the future Broadway line). It's the perfect area to redevelop and should be given first priority for redevelopment. Next in line should be detached homes, then low rise apartments.