Northeast False Creek | Proposed

[duener]

Funny thing is, there was a monorail already in this area. I rode it many times during the summer of '86. (I can still hear "Something's happening here..")

[djmk]

it looks nice. I am surprised with the number of residents. i was expecting more office space.

which reminds me, this study of 1.6mil sqft of office space... i wonder how Colliers came up with that number and how valid it is?

as well, what is up with City Gate? that area has serious potential but is just a yellow blob

[officedweller]

Here are a couple of e-mails sent around by the organizers of the Rio Tinto Alcan Dragon Boat Festival. With encroachment onto the existing DragonZone practice facility site (south of Science World) by SEFC construction and redevelopment, we need accommodation in NEFC for a permenant boat house for both the year-round practice facility and the dragon boat festivals held in False Creek.

During peak times, up to 10 boats of 20 paddlers (plus steersperson and caller) practice during each of 3 timeslots each weeknight and weekend morning. That's a lot of participants, and the planned paddling facilities at the SEFC community centre are not large enough to accommodate dragon boating. The Rio Tinto Alcan Dragon Boat Festival has over 150 teams of 25 paddlers at its annual festival (as well as smaller races at other times).

Even though the redevelopment of the Creekside Park expansion will be the last area to be completed, there must be accommodation in the plans for a permenant dragon boat boathouse practice facility for year round parctices as well as festival activities.

You can help the Dragon Boat Festival stay at False Creek! Please plan to drop by one of two upcoming Open Houses and leave a comment:

Sunday, Jan 25, 2009
11:30 am – 4 pm
Central Branch Library, 350 West Georgia

Monday, Jan 26, 2009
4 – 8 pm
Roundhouse Community Centre, 181 Roundhouse Mews

The north side of False Creek is the last piece of land that is suitable for our activities in the City of Vancouver. If this land is developed without a permanent home for dragon boating as part of the plan, Vancouver will lose a first class festival, a popular paddling community organization, a tourist event and a very important cultural icon. We'd like a boat house on False Creek.

Please drop in and write your comments. Tell your team. It's not complicated – we just want a place to paddle and hold our Festival.

Thanks – and paddles up!


Ann Phelps
General Manager, Rio Tinto Alcan Dragon Boat Festival

Send an email or leave a post and help the dragon boat festival stay at False Creek
Additional info for those who cannot make it to one of these Open Houses:

People can email their comments to nefc@vancouver.ca (NEFC stands for North East False Creek).

Also, by Wednesday of next week they hope to have all the "boards" - the images and maps that will be at the Open House - up on their site at www.Vancouver.ca/nefc

There people can study the presentations and submit comments and suggestions.

Thank you for your support!

Leah Nagano
Race Registrar
2009 Rio Tinto Alcan Dragon Boat Festival

[wrenegade]

The VAG hasn't accepted the proposed location for the new art gallery, and I think the area between the Cambie street bridge and BC place would be a far better location for a whole host of reasons. I'll ignore the fact that Concord owns the land for the time being. From the plans, the site seems to be relatively the same size.



This site works better because:

1. Access from Robson street. It is far easier to walk down Robson and through the plaza near the Terry Fox memorial and around the walkway to this site. It's not only closer, but more visible.

2. Visibility. On the waterfront, the Art Gallery would be visible to those on the seawall, those living in SEFC and briefly on the Skytrain. Next to the Cambie street bridge, it would be visible to everyone who enters Vancouver from that bridge. Not only that, but a lower building height would expose the spires on BC Place and provide views to those on Fairview slopes.

3. Access to public transit. While the current waterfront site is close to the Stadium Skytrain station, next to BC place would only be a slightly further walk. On the other hand, this site is MUCH closer to the Yaletown Canada Line station. A trade off I think is very worthwhile.

4. Access to vehicle traffic. Elevating the plaza/Art Gallery up to the level of the walkway around BC place and at or close to the sidewalk from the Cambie street bridge would possibly allow for a parkade underneath. Left in/left out entrances/exits off of Expo blvd. and Pacific blvd where the current alignment of Terry Fox way is would work very well. I don't see the loss of Terry Fox way itself to be a big deal. Traffic would continue along Expo blvd, turning left onto Nelson, then left again onto Pacific. From the Cambie street bridge, traffic could follow a similar route, left onto Expo blvd, then around Nelson and Pacific and into the parkade (and/or a drop-off area).

5. More viable public space. While being on the water would be sweet, being surrounded by residential towers on 3 sides, and BC place on the other would put this closer to more people. While not providing the views of the waterfront, the public space would focus attention on the building itself, being an Art Gallery, I hope this would be a good thing.



The property value of the land directly on the waterfront would hopefully accommodate some sort of land swap with Concord, and I'm sorry to some that half of "Colours" would be lost. I would hope the building that would go in it's place would be much more spectacular as an entrance into downtown.

I realize this would hamper the size of office space or "jobs" area, but hopefully that could be solved by allowing Aquilini to go higher with his tower, going higher with the tower next to BC Place on the SE side, or transfering the density somewhere else in the city (Canada Post site and/or the site kitty corner to it?).

With regards to the extension to creekside park, I think that location so close to both the viaducts and skytrain line would create a lot of noise that any residents would complain about. I think it's good leaving it open like that.

[ckkelley]

Originally Posted by LeftCoaster

Why do we want a monorail? Is this Odgenville? Is this 1980?

Streetcars look great, function great and are cost effective.

Monorails are none of the above.

"Mono" means one and "rail" means rail.

Prob. one of my favourite episodes.

[officedweller]

I think that the plan with the waterfront site for the VAG is to extend Georgia Street with a podium roof plaza at the height of the viaduct, and steps that come down to Pacific Boulevard and a civic plaza.

Of course, the problem is that there's little incentive for a tourist to start that walk down Georgia St. because it's a ceremonial street, not a walking street.
Even with redevelopment of the institutional uses along the street, i.e. Post Office and QE Theatre forecourt, it won't be a strolling shopping street - i.e. look at Georgia Street west of Burrard - do hoards of people walk down Georgia to get to Stanley Park? I'll bet the distance is about the same.

Access to the alternate site from Robson Street would probably be friendlier to tourists.

Note that Terry Fox Way is to be replaced with a newly extended Smithe Street - but there's no reason that an Art Gallery can't straddle the new street with bridges, or even just butt up against the stadium to the east of Smithe street (although I like the idea of a prow on the building by acquiring the Concord "Colours II" parcel.

It never made sense to me to place an art gallery on a bright southern exposure when art galleries need soft indirect light and tend to be internalized spaces.

[jlousa]

At first I was against the relocation of the VAG to that location and would've prefered to see it go to the bus depot site, but after seeing some sketches I'm now convinced it will work there. I just hope something equally great goes into the bus depot site.
The location you guys are talking about will house a vastly improved Casino, wonder if they'll need to remain it, Edgewater wouldn't work as well there.

[cornholio]

Looks good to me, finally the city will be proactive in regards to new residential units and existing entertainment/noise problems. The city has to make sure that future residents know about potential noise in the area and that the developers protect them the best they can otherwise there will be too many problems like with the float planes, bars/pubs/clubs/etc. on Robson and Granville and on other main streets, stadiums so and and so on.

The most important part of this development for me though is the area under the viaducts, the city has to really make sure that the space is used well, for it to be safe and to conect the area north and south of them. I think the big advantage of the area is that it is mostly covered from the elements which creates a great opportunity for basketball courts, skate parks, tennis courts, etc. and these would all be usable in the rainy winter months. There is enough space there to really create something special interms of a sports facility. I would also think that some type of community center, or maybe daycare could also be incorporated under the viaducts to bring in even more people(eyes and ears). Aslo if this will be the use then some type of roof should be constructed to cover the area between the viaducts to keep the entire space dry, maybe a glass curved shaped roof would be a way to go such as the one in Metrotown mall as a example.
I also think another option that could be looked at is incorporating developments in to the are between the viaducts, buildings such as the Qube in Coal harbour would fit though parking would be a issue(could maybe lease space for a parkade under the city streets?).

Personally I prefer the use for sports.

Anyways looking good.

[cornholio]

Is it just me or does the area in the middle of falsecreek just scream for a huge landmark fountain?

And I know this probably isnt realistic but one can dream right, but would it ever be possible to drain and excavate that area of false creek and build a extension to Science world, then rebury it and flood it above. It would allow the spacecenter to be relocated, etc, and as far as environmental impacts are concerned it would actually end up cleaning up that part of false creek which im sure has alot of crap from the past 150 years of industrial uses around there. Anyways just a dream of mine, though it was a affordable way to expand museum space downtown without using any extra land and especially using any land with value. Just have to drain, dig, clean, build a cube shaped building with no worries about outside looks or functionality, just has to be water tight, conect to science world and build emergcey exits to other points, bury, flood and restore underwater habitat to its natural state.

[jlousa]

One thing I would like to see but it's not in the scope of this review is a passerelle connecting sefc and nefc. I would love to see a ship placed lengthwise taking up most of the space with movable ramps (to account for the tides)connecting to the shores on each side, you'd be able to walk or cycle straight across. or hang out there and explore on the deck or watch the dragon boat races. You can pick up an old single hull ship for scrap metal so it'd be pretty cheap.
You'd still have space for small boats, the dragon boats and the aquabus to pass thru. and if needed a tug boat could move it out of the way in a matter of hours.

[cornholio]

^interesting idea, a level crossing would do wonders to the area and there really is no need for marinas or regular boat traffic past there except kayaks, aqua buses and small little boats.

This is the type of creativity the city needs, unfortunately everyone always wants to play it safe...and probably for good reasons.

[Vancity]

Originally Posted by cornholio

Looks good to me, finally the city will be proactive in regards to new residential units and existing entertainment/noise problems. The city has to make sure that future residents know about potential noise in the area and that the developers protect them the best they can otherwise there will be too many problems like with the float planes, bars/pubs/clubs/etc. on Robson and Granville and on other main streets, stadiums so and and so on.

The most important part of this development for me though is the area under the viaducts, the city has to really make sure that the space is used well, for it to be safe and to conect the area north and south of them. I think the big advantage of the area is that it is mostly covered from the elements which creates a great opportunity for basketball courts, skate parks, tennis courts, etc. and these would all be usable in the rainy winter months. There is enough space there to really create something special interms of a sports facility. I would also think that some type of community center, or maybe daycare could also be incorporated under the viaducts to bring in even more people(eyes and ears). Aslo if this will be the use then some type of roof should be constructed to cover the area between the viaducts to keep the entire space dry, maybe a glass curved shaped roof would be a way to go such as the one in Metrotown mall as a example.
I also think another option that could be looked at is incorporating developments in to the are between the viaducts, buildings such as the Qube in Coal harbour would fit though parking would be a issue(could maybe lease space for a parkade under the city streets?).

Personally I prefer the use for sports.

Anyways looking good.

I agree. I think Vancouver is absolutely gorgeous in the Summer, and people are out, skating, playing basketball, etc., but during the winter months, nobody can play ball outside, because all of the courts are wet (due to the rain). I know there are community centres, but what if there are people who love to play outdoors? Having basketball courts under the viaduct, I think, is a great idea - it would allow people to play a pickup basketball game even when it's raining ('cause the viaducts would protect the courts from the rain). I'm all for sports! And I love the idea of having it under the viaducts. Skate park too, that would be an awesome thing to have for the city

[officedweller]

The existing wide east sidewalk of the bridge and the staircase and ramps to/from the seawall are well used. I don't think that a passarelle is needed. The boat cruises also enter the east basin (a number are currently docked at the Plaza of Nations and the Coal Harbour based ones also cruise through). I could also see access for fireboats being useful on the waterfront too.

As for a fountain?
Not until the combined sewer overflows are removed from False Creek.
The last thing we need is a 100 foot tall spray of fecal matter over the creek and seawall!
We saw condoms floating around the dock at Alder Bay (Granville Island) last weekend as a reuslt of the overflows.... nice.

[mr.x]

^ errrr, why were there condoms in the creek?


As for the massive park, if it's required well then someone definitely screwed up the Concord masterplan up....I would rather have park space spread out across the NEFC site rather than having one massive field there - unless someone is planning to have Woodstock there every year. :p

[cornholio]

Originally Posted by officedweller

The existing wide east sidewalk of the bridge and the staircase and ramps to/from the seawall are well used. I don't think that a passarelle is needed. The boat cruises also enter the east basin (a number are currently docked at the Plaza of Nations and the Coal Harbour based ones also cruise through). I could also see access for fireboats being useful on the waterfront too.

As for a fountain?
Not until the combined sewer overflows are removed from False Creek.
The last thing we need is a 100 foot tall spray of fecal matter over the creek and seawall!
We saw condoms floating around the dock at Alder Bay (Granville Island) last weekend as a reuslt of the overflows.... nice.

Well the main problem is people dumping crap in the storm drains. I know a friend of mine who worked as a plumber regularly drained sewage in to the storm drains in the area. Also it would help, though costly, if they partially connected via pipes false creek with the Burrard peninsula so it could help flush it during tides. But I suppose I do agree with you but a large landmark fountain would just fit in so nicely, and I mean something that will be on postcards.

[officedweller]

The City of Vancouver and New Westminster both still have turn of the century "combined sewer overflows/outfalls". Both cities have a combined sewer system for sanitary (toilet, etc.) sewage and storm drain runoff through the same pipes. When there is heavy rainfall (or snow melt) the pipes get filled to capacity due to the combined volume of sanitary sewage and large amounts of rainwater from storm drains - and to prevent back-ups into people's homes, etc. there are the overflows/outfalls that are essentially pressure relief valves that allow the pipes to empty into various water bodies around Vancouver (North Arm Fraser, Burrard Inlet ... and False Creek -i.e. raw untreated sewage and stormwater enters the creek after heavy rainfalls.

The combined sewer system is being replaced (with separate sanitary and storm sewer systems) - but over a period of 50 years to keep tax increases down. In order to do so, every sewer pipe in the city is being twinned.

[cornholio]

^Yeah I kind of understood that but how often do they overflow. I was under the impression that it was not very common.
Any idea how often it does overflow?

[dreambrother808]

Personally, I love the huge park space. Yes, we have many smaller parks, but larger ones such as this have their place as well.

[metroXpress]

^^^ I do agree with you that lagre park space should be reserved and
they shouldn't put to much towers around BC Place or else it's going to
block everything and we would only be able to see the Stadium from some
angles.

[Canadian Mind]

While I am normlly gainst viewcones and sightlines, I'd suggest shorter towers around BC Place, with on or two much larger signature towers... Aswell as a sightline from Science World and Millenium water (if the later is possible). The sightlines to BC place could contain some of the parkspace from concord if a land-swap deal is possible, which in turn wouldn't cut science world off from downtown so much.

Is it possible in any way for concord to try and get out of it's park space commitment, possibly in exchange for office developent or other ammenities?

And hwo about tying in an under-water development in False Creek? Would be a unique attraction to Vancouver.