Downtown Vancouver Updates

[SpongeG]

Full article/source: https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/granvill...-revitalization-downtown-vancouver-dvbia

"Restaurant row" part of new bold vision for a vibrant Granville Street in downtown


Existing: Intersection of Granville Street and Davie Street in downtown Vancouver. (Microsoft Maps)


Future: Intersection of Granville Street and Davie Street in downtown Vancouver. (PWL Partnership/DVBIA/Resonance)


Existing: Granville Street looking north from Nelson Street in downtown Vancouver. (Microsoft Maps)


Future: Granville Street looking north from Nelson Street in downtown Vancouver. (PWL Partnership/DVBIA/Resonance)

[trofirhen]

Whewww !!! Love it! Go for it! Take Granville and raise it from a 'C+' to an 'A.' This would give it the plasma transfusion that it needs.

[s211]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

Future: Granville Street looking north from Nelson Street in downtown Vancouver. (PWL Partnership/DVBIA/Resonance)

Cartoonish renderings like this are never helpful.

[scryer]

If you marry this vision:

Originally Posted by SpongeG

Full article/source: https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/granvill...-revitalization-downtown-vancouver-dvbia

"Restaurant row" part of new bold vision for a vibrant Granville Street in downtown



Future: Intersection of Granville Street and Davie Street in downtown Vancouver. (PWL Partnership/DVBIA/Resonance)



Future: Granville Street looking north from Nelson Street in downtown Vancouver. (PWL Partnership/DVBIA/Resonance)

with this:

...then you'll have yourself a match made in heaven methinks .

I don't mean to drag this too off topic but you would have 800 Granville street supplying these restaurants with daytime traffic. And then workers in the surrounding area will hang out at Granville street after work driving the late afternoon, early evening traffic. And then you combine it with the fact that Granville street will naturally attract the entertainment crowd, and you'll have yourself a lot of foot traffic.

Also part of the vision from the article that I feel is great to see discussed:

Furthermore, restaurant operations would be further supported by a permanent patio program, taking advantage of the wide sidewalk spaces along much of the street.

To further support all of these activities, the municipal government’s food truck, live music, noise regulations should be relaxed, and requirements for creating events and pop-up activations should be simplified.

Besides temporary critical mass through events, there is also the overwhelming need for permanent critical mass, specifically through redevelopment that provides levels of offices and hotels above retail, restaurants, and entertainment venues.

“We need to look at revisions to zoning, density, and height, create solutions that put more people on the street, to begin with. Secondly, we need to create an attractive environment that will draw more people who will want to visit the street. It is not one or the other that will solve the problems for Granville Street, the reality is we need a combination of development and placemaking to improve the environment that is there.”

IMO, this is an amazing vision for a revitalized Granville street.

[officedweller]

Just a note that Yaletown has some office space, plus the majority of its retail units are occupied by restaurants, and the area is fairly dead during the day. You'll need an entire CBD to keep all those restaurants busy, plus there won't be any views from the restaurants (similar to Yaletown).

Originally Posted by s211

Cartoonish renderings like this are never helpful.

Yeah, screams "artist's concept".

[GenWhy?]

Speaking in generalities and maybe a poor example, but Denman is generally quiet outside of tourist season with the main exceptions (excluding English Bay to try to compare apples to apples) the busiest areas are the intersections by grocery stores (Comox, Nelson), a wee bit around the rec centre and Safeway at Robson.

Similarly around Davie. This is where local weekday people generally go. I remember the Yaletown praise around the arrival of Urban Fair for needed foot traffic, similar to Olympic Village.

[officedweller]

Grocery stores and drug stores really do serve as neighbourhood anchors to generate foot traffic.

If it's all a restaurant row, why would I go there if I'm not hungry?

[GenWhy?]

Fresh St and London Drugs at Davie would probably have helped alot as opposed to its current location, for instance.

[GenWhy?]

Originally Posted by officedweller

Grocery stores and drug stores really do serve as neighbourhood anchors to generate foot traffic.

If it's all a restaurant row, why would I go there if I'm not hungry?

Exactly, and that's a bit of the conversation we've been trying to have with the City... but by this point I don't think the area can support another one.

Anecdotal, but the last time I hung out on Granville on a weekday or weekend before 6 or 7pm (not music related or drinks before a show) was when I was 20 for the Olympics. I think I've had hungover Sunday brunch twice maybe in 2018.

[officedweller]

Likewise, I don't eat out much, so even though I live across the street from Yaletown, I rarely go there, other than the Shoppers Drug Mart on Homer and the BMO (not much anymore).

The Urban Fare is too expensive for general groceries, so I think there's room for a high end and a low end grocer in each neighbourhood.

The problem is having a site big enough for a grocery store in a mixed use project when you have a condo elevator core and parking ramp eating into the space. Loblaws City Market at The Post will be a uniquely massive grocery store downtown (other than Costco).

You wonder is a grocery store (a real grocery store, like Safeway not a "gourmet food hall") would work in the basement of the Hudson's Bay downtown). I think the SkyTrain concourse level of the Bay has been closed off.

[city guy]

it needs to be a big downtown campus for UBC with 10,000 students milling about and hungry

[GenWhy?]

YA the 2 IGA's, Nesters, Choices might be far enough away to allow soon a "lower tier" grocer, but even a Kin's would help I'd imagine at least at Davie. I'm not too familiar with the residential profile of the area. The new students at Granville House should help, hopefully sometime when things are semi normal. I admit a No Frills even as small as the Denman one would need a "unique opportunity and design".

[mcminsen]

Originally Posted by mcminsen

Jan.9 '21, my pics

Originally Posted by jollyburger

I mean they're sticking a bunch of trees to block those facades.



https://awards.re-thinkingthefuture.com/acda2020-winners/smithe-richards-urban-park-by-dialog/

Originally Posted by officedweller

Smithe & Richards Park

Pics by me Sat Jan 30th:

Originally Posted by officedweller

Another park pic by me today:

Feb.9 '21, my pics

[s211]

^Can we name that park after an endangered snail, in honour of the project's protracted progress? Bonus points if the snail is endangered due to climate change.

[LeftCoaster]

Originally Posted by officedweller

Yeah, screams "artist's concept".

Well in fairness it is exactly that. This is just the BIA, not any landowners, so they are only proposing a vague concept not an actual plan.

I will say the timing of the BIA releasing this vision coincides awfully well with Bonnis' proposal...

[officedweller]

Originally Posted by LeftCoaster

Well in fairness it is exactly that. This is just the BIA, not any landowners, so they are only proposing a vague concept not an actual plan.

I will say the timing of the BIA releasing this vision coincides awfully well with Bonnis' proposal...

Well, this sketch in the Daily Hive article is credited to Bonnis, and they own much of the property on the strip.


Future: Granville Street looking north (left) and south (right). (Bonnis Properties)
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/granvill...-revitalization-downtown-vancouver-dvbia

[officedweller]

Originally Posted by s211

^Can we name that park after an endangered snail, in honour of the project's protracted progress? Bonus points if the snail is endangered due to climate change.

Severely off topic:

I don't know of it's endangered, but your comment reminded me of the cone snail which uses a paralyzing poison on fish, then eats them:

• Video Link

[s211]

Originally Posted by officedweller

snail which uses a paralyzing poison on fish, then eats them:

Now if THAT doesn't remind me of bureaucrats!

[dreambrother808]

Originally Posted by LeftCoaster

Well in fairness it is exactly that. This is just the BIA, not any landowners, so they are only proposing a vague concept not an actual plan.

I will say the timing of the BIA releasing this vision coincides awfully well with Bonnis' proposal...

I see no real reason why Granville can’t transform given the right development. It doesn’t have the same issue as the DTES where such progress is blocked by claims of community upheaval. One block over from Granville in any direction in the roughest areas is generally another world.

[Vin]

Too many SROs along Granville Street downtown to make anything work. There will always be drug peddling, homelessness and lawlessness going around there. The strip will always be gritty and seedy if the majority of the buildings there are occupied by SROs, especially for a city where law enforcers have neither will nor tooth to do their jobs properly.