Victoria Construction - #7

[The Great Scaper]

Hey Zoomer. No I didn't. I was talking to Carew and we want to do some skyline photos from various locations soon. I'll text you and hopefully the three of us can get together. I still haven't used my new camera. Time to take it out of the box and put it to use. hahaha.

[zoomer]

Take it out of the box man!!

Some news you’ve been waiting for - a little disappointing, but not terrible. Posted today to the Victoria Development Tracker for 1620 Blanshard, formerly known as Gateway Green by Jawl and Tri Eagle Development.

22 storeys, 154 units, 4 retail units, 107 parking stalls within 3 underground levels of parking and 164 bike parking spots. Interesting that the submission letter doesn’t state whether this is rental or condo - perhaps they’ll decide that later based on market conditions. Also no balconies is interesting, which should have allowed them to have a more innovative design. Also the parking seems to be above the ratio the city seems to be headed for downtown with limiting car traffic.



1620 Blanshard Development Proposal as of May 29, 2024 by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr

[vicdevelopments]

Wow. That looks so awesome. Thanks for posting this Zoomer. I really like it however I was hoping for a new tallest office building. I hope it moves forward quickly. 😀

[The Great Scaper]

Zoomer Thank you so much for posting that!!! I really love this proposal. A great looking building in my opinion. A perfect fit next to the Hudson district.. It's a shame that they don't develop the East side of Blanshard Street. It makes no sense at all. I was with Carew today and we want to do some photography. I'll text you about what we are thinking.

[zoomer]

/\ I’m sure that’s coming in due time. The Yellow Cab site across the street is currently for sale: https://cbrevictoria.com/listings/817-fisgard-street/

[VantageHD]

That looks great. Big fan of the horizontal banding at every floor. Gives it an office building vibe.

[vicdevelopments]

It was originally proposed and approved for a 15 story office building but I like the look of this proposal better. The office proposal had a complete green wall at street level. This looks like it has commercial space ground floor.

[zoomer]

Interesting that you like the horizontal banding HD - it’s the part I’m least sure about. We’ll have to wait for the final product to evaluate. It’s typical in Victoria though to try and hide or disguise the fact that a building has any significant (barely) height. The new city council doesn’t seem as concerned about height plus younger generations here want taller buildings and aren’t afraid of them so I’m not sure why we’re still playing this game in Victoria.

I’m referring to the developers reasoning for the horizontal banding in their proposal letter:

“The tower facade is broken up and articulated through the introduction of strong horizontal bands, running around the perimeter of the building at each floor level.”

It reminds me of the 11 storey building nearing completion at Cook and Yates, again to disguise the verticalness the facade has horizontal banding as well. Too bad, because I think it would have looked better emphasizing the vertical on a small building, which you can kind of tell looking at the steel supports for the cladding in this pic. You can see one of the horizontal panels in that pic on the third floor - that side is nearly completed now, I’ll get a new pic soon.

The Nest Condo Construction - February 23, 2024 by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr

Two more interesting notes from the proposal:

“Large, at grade commercial units opening onto wide sidewalks and covered public spaces are proposed to activate the Blanshard and Fisgard street frontages. To the west, a unique linear food court is proposed as a highly visible and active contribution to the existing through block connector.” So, that’s the backside of the building, basically an alleyway and from what I can see there are only two commercial units there, so how does that become a linear food court? Maybe the way each is configured? And why a ‘food court’ there of all places, right across from one in the Victoria Public Market? I don’t think we should expect this to really materialize, but who knows.

Another quote:

“The tower, rising from the podium, is punctuated with distinctive two story skygardens that articulate the massing of the vertical form and provide additional outdoor spaces for resident use. Each of the six skygardens responds to the unique microclimate of its location, in terms of orientation and elevation, and offers residents a choice of outdoor environments that respond to time of day, season and use.”

Source

[zoomer]

Good news - today the heavy equipment rolled into the cleared lot at 324 Cook Street in Cook Street Village to begin excavation for Aragon Properties 48 unit condo.



324 Cook Street - May 30, 2024 by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr

Renderings:



Source

[Apey]

Originally Posted by zoomer

/\ I’m sure that’s coming in due time. The Yellow Cab site across the street is currently for sale: https://cbrevictoria.com/listings/817-fisgard-street/

Interesting the site next to it on Blanchard St is also for sale, could lead to a good sized development...

[zoomer]

/\ Yes, that’s the site that includes the former Serious Coffee right? Great site for an inevitable development I’d have to say.

Some development news - first some not good ‘news’ about Starlight’s Harris Green development. I saw 4 big wigs from Campbell Construction finishing up a meeting at the Nest (you know they’re management when they’re dressed in business clothes with virgin safety vests) and as we were crossing Yates and Cook I asked them when Harris Green would get started. Three of them just smirked and one said laughing “maybe in five years!”. I replied “funny, I would have guessed it would have gotten started before this one” (the active former Pacific Mazda site) to which he replied “yah, so did we”.

I believe Campbell was going to be the general contractor for Harris Green and they are currently using the site to support their work across the street.

Now of course this is not confirmed, and one boardroom meeting in Toronto could green light the project at any moment. It’s still listed on their website as one of their highlighted projects, yet the link to the actual project at the bottom of the page is now dead.. Also Starlight has been in the news lately for some massive losses in the US real estate market.

I’ll now start referring to these sites as StarBlights as they also own the former Ming’s site which has been fenced off for several years.

https://www.starlightinvest.com/prop...-green-village

Ok, here’s the former Pacific Mazda site:



1050 Yates Street - June 8, 2024 by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr

This building looks to be just finishing up, and it’s a rental with listing online now. Also has a new crazy name which makes no sense:



1088 Johnson Street - “Urban Edge Heights B” by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr

I’m still surprised they managed to squeeze that building into such a small lot - but it looks really good for a straight forward building. It’s the little touches that make it stand out, like the concrete design near the base, that random touch of blue and the pattern on the balcony glass. From a distance with the right sun (which I didn’t catch) it also shimmers - turns out it’s just a simple opaque fading circle design - right up close probably nothing special, but it really works.

And just down the block the Wedge must finally be nearing completion, no?! The solar panels on the roof appeared to have been completed, and they’re still restoring the funeral home chapel one storey component at the corner. Still need to take a proper picture from the Johnson street side, that’s a tricky one because there is no room to back up and get it properly unless I use a cell phone camera. You can also see the first few floors of the adjacent 15 storey building on Vancouver and Pandora.



The Wedge condo - June 8, 2024 by JohnnyJayEh, on Flickr

[Apey]

Hi guys and gals, I know it's that time of year when we are all busy. But was wondering if anyone had any new picks of new construction or even just beautiful Victoria it's self? Also, wanted to wish everyone a Happy Father's Day!

With that I have been busy celebrating 18 years with my partner Kevin, and joint birthday parties for him and other family on Sunday (Father's Day). On a personal note please let me remind you all this summer to be safe on the water or near it. My dearest friend from grade school's little one almost drowned in less then a foot of water in a neighbour's wading pool. To add to that my cousin, from the Great Lakes region of Ontario. Was out boating, was hit by another craft everyone survived as they had life jackets on, but sadly the dog they had on board didn't make it; and wasn't realised till too late that their dog hadn't swam to any dry land anywhere in the area.