Quote:
Originally Posted by Changing City
I'm not a property developer, or related to any of them, but I try to understand the economics and other factors that explain the decisions that they make. In order to 'force' developers to build big office towers in places you think they should be developing - the West End, West Broadway or even the Olympic Village, you would have to prevent them from redeveloping the older buildings that they have acquired with a view to redevelopment, like 1166 West Pender.
You seem to think they should make decisions that make little or no economic sense - whether it's building malls Downtown, or large office buildings away from the CBD. By implication that suggests you want to stop the sort of development that involves redeveloping 40 year+ more modest office buildings.
The market, for all its flaws, is developing more office space Downtown, in the CBD, than at any time in the city's history. Some of that involves redeveloping parkades, and almost vacant sites (like Budget car rental). In other examples, it involves redeveloping 10 and 12 storey office buildings that are 40 or more years old. That's likely to happen much more in future.
What you said about losing heritage buildings in the CBD made absolutely no sense to me. When the Birks Building (and the theatre next door) were replaced by the Scotia Tower in the mid 1970s there were literally dozens of vacant sites across the entire CBD (which was even bigger in those days, as residential wasn't permitted in most of the Downtown). The loss had nothing whatsoever to do with any limitations of the scale of the CBD. They were two of a tiny handful of heritage buildings lost in the CBD - none of any significance in the past 20 years, as far as I know. |
I don't think you understand the economics at all.
They don't have to acquire and overpay for the older office buildings if there are lots of other low density sites close by that also allow high density developments. Vancouver does not, and therefore developers are forced to knock down good building to put up bigger ones.
It's the City policies that limit economic opportunities to the few choices developers/owners have right now. May it be the Empire Landmark Hotel, parkade at Melville, old CRA building, 1090 West Pender, 1550 Alberni, the list goes on. These are by no means shabby buildings, and they are only chosen to be demolished only because they are the ONLY sites where taller buildings are allowed. Where else in the world do you see such high proportion of good building destruction at such a mass scale?
Give you an example:
https://www.google.com/maps/@49.2863...7i13312!8i6656
Should this building on Haro be preserved while the much better Empire Landmark tower just a bock behind be destroyed? If the two sites are given equal opportunities in terms of zoning allowance, I'm sure the Empire Landmark hotel will still exist today, while this featureless low-density building would be gone. And it all makes economic sense.
Does it not make more economic sense to build on the vacant sites and restore the Birks building back then? Or perhaps the City should have insisted on its restoration by providing incentives? It is the non-appreciation of good older buildings that led to their demise.
And guess what? You just unknowingly stated another dumb city policy back then: not allowing residential downtown, thus resulting in lots of undeveloped vacant lands in the CBD area. It's exactly the same how I see many of the policies today: dumb. Think of the potential our downtown has if they can open up many of its restricted policies today. There would definitely be many projects unimaginable by you being proposed.
Also, I don't think there were only two significant heritage buildings torn down. Look at the old pictures of Vancouver and you can see how many heritage buildings we already lost, just dig out any old photos:
https://miss604.com/2015/07/vancouve...-building.html
There's a reason why Vancouver isn't an outstanding city when it comes to the built-form. That's because we keep giving lame excuses that we can do dumb things and somehow things would correct themselves. The worst crime is that after all the stupidity, we glaze everything over with watered down and inferior replacements, and we still stupidly think that these are better.
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