CF Pacific Centre Developments

[officedweller]

Cigarette butts from all the smokers get trapped in the gaps - making a visual mess.

[Vin]

Originally Posted by officedweller

Cigarette butts from all the smokers get trapped in the gaps - making a visual mess.

Don't get that mentality.....Same for spitting gum on pavements.

[SFUVancouver]

I thought that those raised concrete panels were to smooth out the transition from the Georgia Street sidewalk to the entrance of the office building. It was a sunken plaza, after all, with a semi-circular depression that had seating/stairs surrounding the Robson side and turning the corner to Georgia St.

[jollyburger]

Originally Posted by SFUVancouver

I thought that those raised concrete panels were to smooth out the transition from the Georgia Street sidewalk to the entrance of the office building. It was a sunken plaza, after all, with a semi-circular depression that had seating/stairs surrounding the Robson side and turning the corner to Georgia St.

Yeah, you can adjust the supports in the pedestal to deal with uneven surfaces and also helps with less water pooling/algae as mentioned.

[officedweller]

Remember what the plaza looked like when it was originally built in 1972(?)
- the plaza entrance to the TD Tower was at a lower level (same as the interior TD Tower lobby where the Fido is located)
So the plaza in that area was probably at that level too, and then built up at some point.

Originally Posted by officedweller

...

Found a pic - there was an alcove there - with plaza stairs down to the building!
Sure looked like an interesting space back then...


http://searcharchives.vancouver.ca/pacific-centre-701-granville-street

I think this is probably the only pic I've seen where you can see the entrance to Eaton's rotunda when it had no doors - just jets of air from above.


http://searcharchives.vancouver.ca/description-in-progress-5326

and a plan of the plaza:


http://searcharchives.vancouver.ca/uploa...2-1b9a-4620-9bd5-193cb6472449-A74121.jpg

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=197987&page=87

Different parts were built up for the current plaza design.
Here's the part in front of Nordstrom being built up with cinder blocks.

Originally Posted by officedweller

Pics by me yesterday - Nov 18, 2014
Foundation for the plaza looks levelled out:

More Vancouver archives pics - the Arcade entrance (breezeway between TD Tower and Eaton's)
was at the same lower grade at the TD Tower lobby
(same continuous grade from TD Tower lobby through TD Bank, Arcade/ breezeway and Eaton's main floor).
... an look at the size of that bike rack!


http://searcharchives.vancouver.ca/pacific-centre-701-granville-street-5


http://searcharchives.vancouver.ca/pacific-centre-701-granville-street-3

[officedweller]

Apparently the sunken area in the TD Tower alcove was used as an amphitheatre:


http://searcharchives.vancouver.ca/description-in-progress-663


http://searcharchives.vancouver.ca/description-in-progress-760

[Vanelevatorman]

Originally Posted by officedweller

Apparently the sunken area in the TD Tower alcove was used as an amphitheatre:


http://searcharchives.vancouver.ca/description-in-progress-663


http://searcharchives.vancouver.ca/description-in-progress-760

I could see this as a neat feature of the space for a lot of smaller events.

[vanman]

Toronto's Nordstrom for anyone who is interested. It looks like we dodged a bullet.

Originally Posted by caltrane74

Finally a rendering of the Eaton Centre reconstruction


http://www.retail-insider.com/

[dreambrother808]

It's the fugliest of any of the Canadian Nordstrom exteriors and hardly worthy of a flagship location. The worst part is CF not pitching in to refaçade the 80's style office floors above.

[EdinVan]

Originally Posted by dreambrother808

It's the fugliest of any of the Canadian Nordstrom exteriors and hardly worthy of a flagship location. The worst part is CF not pitching in to refaçade the 80's style office floors above.

I thought it was impossible to find anything uglier than the Vancouver store. I was wrong.

[officedweller]

For the TO store, Sears Head Office is remaining upstairs, so CF didn't renovate/reclad the upper floors - the bizarre part is that Nordstrom didn't take a full floorplate (CF has carved up part of the space for big box store Uniqlo and a rumoured Apple store).
The horizontal banding is the same as the other Canadian stores (Chinook, Yorkdale, etc) so in that respect, the Vancouver store is the oddball.

[Vantage]

Here's some progress pictures for the "upgrades" to the plaza.

2016-02-25

2016-02-25

Kinda hard to tell from the photos, but it looks like they've put down foam, a membrane, and then sand. Eliminating the need for those stilts. Hopefully the sand will help it maintain some of the drainage features the old design had. It looks to be relatively coarse sand.

[jollyburger]

Or maybe wood/Styrofoam sitting on top of those pedestals?

[Marshal]

Originally Posted by vanman

Toronto's Nordstrom for anyone who is interested. It looks like we dodged a bullet.

We did dodge a bullet, but we did so many decades ago. The old Toronto Eatons Centre, save for the crowds that filled it, was a conceptual and design disaster from the start. Thanks to its scale (I'll guess it to be 1/2 the size) Pacific Centre was never able to kill its part of downtown the way Eatons Centre did. But its architecture was also considerably worse.

This rendering of the Nordstrom conversion is indeed ugly, but 3/4 of it is just the old Eatons; as ugly as ever.

[retro_orange]

Originally Posted by Marshal

We did dodge a bullet, but we did so many decades ago. The old Toronto Eatons Centre, save for the crowds that filled it, was a conceptual and design disaster from the start. Thanks to its scale (I'll guess it to be 1/2 the size) Pacific Centre was never able to kill its part of downtown the way Eatons Centre did. But its architecture was also considerably worse.

This rendering of the Nordstrom conversion is indeed ugly, but 3/4 of it is just the old Eatons; as ugly as ever.

But of course Sears made it uglier when they moved in


pic from http://torontoist.com/2014/01/from-eatons-to-sears-to-nordstrom/


love the circles, The vancouver PC Eatons could of used some circular windows in it's original incarnation or 80's reno. Hopefully the gross yellow façade panels get a different colour out of the Nordstrom Reno.

[connect2source]

Originally Posted by officedweller

Remember what the plaza looked like when it was originally built in 1972(?)
- the plaza entrance to the TD Tower was at a lower level (same as the interior TD Tower lobby where the Fido is located)
So the plaza in that area was probably at that level too, and then built up at some point.

It was architecturally beautiful too, with the 45% angle applied to all paved areas, stairs, planters and the entire surrounding sidewalk on Georgia, Howe, Robson and Granville. Very cohesive and well thought through. Originally the west-side of the long planter along Granville had a long waterfall-like water feature but that was removed soon after completion, around 1974, for some reason.

Also loved the alcove on the TD Tower, the 80's triangular add-on for the entry doesn't work or fit with the original design. I'm still hoping it will be replaced as shown in some of the early renders for Nordstrom and the plaza.

[Metro-One]

While it is much uglier in general than the Vancouver one, at least they get some billboard signage to actually make it feel like a downtown commercial setting. Knowing Toronto, I am guessing they will be upgraded to video screens or have some form of lighting features?

[connect2source]

Originally Posted by vanman

Toronto's Nordstrom for anyone who is interested. It looks like we dodged a bullet.

I don't think it looks that bad, the entire Yonge Street stretch of Eaton Centre is sort of hodgepodge but in a very exciting, Times Square, sort of urban way. The actual Nordstrom section is better in some ways than ours IMO, I like the cleaner glazing far better than our hideous blue protruding boxes and they've tied in the tile nicely on the south end all the way to the top.

[Marshal]

Originally Posted by retro_orange

But of course Sears made it uglier when they moved in
Hopefully the gross yellow façade panels get a different colour out of the Nordstrom Reno.

Yes, Sears is always up for making ugly uglier. Yes too, those panels must go . . . I guess I still care about Toronto.

[Prometheus]

Originally Posted by Metro-One

While it is much uglier in general than the Vancouver one, at least they get some billboard signage to actually make it feel like a downtown commercial setting. Knowing Toronto, I am guessing they will be upgraded to video screens or have some form of lighting features?

Yeah, apparently they are installing a massive LED wall on one of the facades.