Burnaby Updates

[jollyburger]

Was looking at Anthem's coming soon properties and for some reason the Holiday Inn Express is listed. Anything happening there?

https://anthemproperties.com/property/holiday-inn-express-metrotown/

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by jollyburger

Was looking at Anthem's coming soon properties and for some reason the Holiday Inn Express is listed. Anything happening there?

https://anthemproperties.com/property/holiday-inn-express-metrotown/

I saw elsewhere that it was renovated last year - maybe they don't update their website very often (which is true for a lot of sites).

[jollyburger]

Originally Posted by Sheba

I saw elsewhere that it was renovated last year - maybe they don't update their website very often (which is true for a lot of sites).

Thanks makes sense, seems like it re-opened December 2022.

[hollywoodnorth]

a new project from Concord right next to Patterson Station on Olive Street. current 3 story building is set for internal demo and is empty now.

https://www.concordgreenhouse.com/

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by hollywoodnorth

a new project from Concord right next to Patterson Station on Olive Street. current 3 story building is set for internal demo and is empty now.

https://www.concordgreenhouse.com/

There's also a 52 unit 6-storey non-market rental as part of the development. Designed by IBI (or whatever they're now called). It was referred to as Barker+Olive initially, and was submitted in 2017. 42 storeys, 6.9 FSR.

[jollyburger]

The EA proposed changes to allow childcare on campus might be up to a 20,000 sq feet facility with spots for 247 children.

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by BaddieB

New proposal for a 90 unit, six storey apartment building on Royal Oak and Grimmer. Called 'Nido'. A 5-over-1 type building.

There's a website now with this (oversize) image - the form looks like a lot of the buildings in the area. I walked by today and the former VanCity there has hoarding up. I'm guessing False Creek Collision next door is part of this site too.

[Klazu]

Originally Posted by hollywoodnorth

a new project from Concord right next to Patterson Station on Olive Street. current 3 story building is set for internal demo and is empty now.

https://www.concordgreenhouse.com/

Yeah, there is a sign up since past few weeks.







Interesting solution with the balcony railings.

Video Link

Also, interesting that they make water leak protection a selling point. Happy to see it, but slightly unusual.

Video Link

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by Klazu

Yeah, there is a sign up since past few weeks.

Amusing that they're making it look huge compared to everything else in the renders when it's only going to be 42 storeys (plus a 6 storey rental building). It's not our version of the Burj Khalifa

[jollyburger]

They made 44 storey Nuvo look like this



https://anthemproperties.com/property/nuvo/

[Klazu]

Well, Nuvo renderings are complete BS, but Central Park actually looks that way from 40+ floors up, as I can personally attest. They didn't exaggerate that.

[Tvisforme]

Douglas Todd had an interesting opinion piece about project renderings in Saturday's Vancouver Sun:

Douglas Todd: Why you shouldn’t always believe what you see in architectural renderings

Douglas Todd
Published Nov 03, 2023

Most of us aren’t skilled at drawing, painting or sketching. So we don’t realize how easy it is to capture a bit of reality — or, more to the point, distort it — through visual representations.

As a result, we’re vulnerable to approving development projects that can transform the look and feel of cities based on pretty images of tower complexes, which can turn out to actually be gargantuan, stark and unpleasant.

Worse, no one takes responsibility for the early false advertising.

We’re seeing more of how the persuasive power of architectural images can be used, and abused, with virtually every massive multi-tower project in Vancouver, including at the Oakridge Park, Jericho Lands, Sen̓áḵw and Broadway-Commercial clusters, as well as with Burnaby’s Metrotown, Brentwood and Lougheed conglomerations.

Here’s how things go wrong.

“To get anything built, developers first have to sell it through images,” says Erick Villagomez, a Vancouver urban designer who teaches drawing, rendering and visualization at UBC and Kwantlen Polytechnic University.

Fundamentally, Villagomez says, the artists hired to create the illustrations to market highrise complexes do everything they can to make the large proposal look attractive, if not idyllic. Sometimes they might do so naively, he says, other times with more dubious intentions.

“The trouble comes,” he says, “when the public take the artistic images and treat them as real.”

Since, in architecture and urban planning, images are more important than in almost any other field, Villagomez says politicians and the public need to become more educated about the tricks of the visualization trade.

First, perhaps, they need to become aware of the marketing artifice behind the often used bird’s-eye, or so-called God’s-eye view, of a building or highrise cluster. This establishing image, which often includes distant mountains, parks and sea, always makes a structure look smaller, less imposing.

“The God’s-eye view is one almost no one will ever see, except those who can afford to go up in an airplane or helicopter,” says Villagomez.

This aerial perspective can make a viewer think the developer has something to hide — for good reason, Villagomez says, because “the lived experience of a building, what it will really look and feel like, is always from the ground.”

In Metro Vancouver, another overused presentation technique, if not subterfuge, is to render the project illustration in the form of watercolour paintings.

Such blurry watercolours avoid hard lines and aim to create a sense of softness and openness.

This technique is front and centre in the renderings distributed by the city of Vancouver and MST Development Corp. to sell the kilometre-long tower conglomeration for about 20,000 new residents on Vancouver’s Jericho Lands.

MST’s artistic tactic has provoked a kind of war of renderings.

Architect Brian Palmquist and the Jericho Coalition, a citizens’ group, have released their own interpretation of the proposal, showing a much bulkier-looking development, which they argue is more realistic. Alternatively, the Jericho Coalition has created drawings said to suggest what the Jericho Lands would look like if filled with more “human-scale” medium-rise buildings.

Villagomez recently conducted a deep dive into the visualizations that Westbank has been producing of its three-tower vision for the Safeway site next to the Broadway-Commercial SkyTrain Station.

He has shown how the developer’s drawings greatly exaggerate the size and brightness of a proposed plaza on the contentious east Vancouver site. The illustrations simply leave out some existing buildings, in order to make a pedestrian, bicycle and auto route seem more spacious and pleasant. In addition, the architects’ drawings add “fictional” low-rise buildings to the surrounding neighbourhood, to make the three proposed 30-storey-plus towers feel less imposing.

And, as is almost always the case, the Safeway site drawings assume the sun is high in the sky. That is misleading idealism, though, because it gives the impression the highrises will produce virtually no shadows. Villagomez’s calculations, on the other hand, show at some times of the day the towers will form shadows that stretch for hundreds of metres.

“In the end, a lot of architectural renderings become fake images,” he says.

“Ultimately, this leads to poor decisions that can only be proven false after a project is built and the visuals used leading up to the approvals in the first place are long forgotten. This has long-standing consequences on the workings of the city — impacts that last for decades.”

What can be done to combat misleading visuals, which often lead to uglier buildings?

The most basic step is to help the public, politicians and planners become more literate about the under-the-radar manipulative techniques often used in developers’ presentations.

Another response, relying on available technology, is for municipalities to develop three-dimensional, interactive digital maps of every one of its streets, buildings and parks. With 3D, Villagomez said, it becomes much easier for everyone to accurately visualize how a new building would fit into an existing neighbourhood.

Finally, Villagomez rightfully maintains it’s time for developers, architects and illustrators to be “held accountable” when they tamper with artistic renderings in a way that misleads an uninformed citizenry. Such city-altering visuals may need to be regulated.

“Architects should ‘sign and seal’ renderings intended for public consumption,” Villagomez says. “This accountability should extend to post-construction.”

[GenWhy?]

“Architects should ‘sign and seal’ renderings intended for public consumption,” Villagomez says. “This accountability should extend to post-construction.”

I would love to see an architect's rendering of their building from streetview that has just a giant mature tree infront, obscuring the whole proposed building.

Or a blurry image showcasing what most people will see driving by in their car at 55km/hr

[jollyburger]

The Chevron on Kingsway is for sale (wasn't included in that previous list of stations that Parkland was selling). It's a tiny lot so it would be an assembly with the properties next door.

https://www.collierscanada.com/en-ca/pro...rnaby-british-columbia-canada/can2011328

The office building next door sold in 2014 for $27.2 million to a local private investor

https://vancouvermarket.ca/tag/marlborough-court/

4909 Kingsway (the Chinese restaurant) sold around 2019 for $5.1 million

https://karimwinsor.com/wp-content/uploa...hure.FINAL_.reduced-size.2019-Nov-20.pdf

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by Klazu

Installing LED lighting under the SkyTrain guideway is progressing well in Metrotown. They are almost done with the section between Metrotown and Patterson. Looking forward to seeing it turned on for the first time in coming weeks.

Has anyone heard any updates on this? There have been a few times recently when I've been out after sunset and seen it on. The section from Patterson through to Royal Oak station is done and then ... nothing. The initial news reports on it had the Royal Oak to Edmonds section being the last bit and it would be completed by "early 2023".

[jollyburger]

Originally Posted by Sheba

Has anyone heard any updates on this? There have been a few times recently when I've been out after sunset and seen it on. The section from Patterson through to Royal Oak station is done and then ... nothing. The initial news reports on it had the Royal Oak to Edmonds section being the last bit and it would be completed by "early 2023".

City of Burnaby site says early 2024

https://www.burnaby.ca/our-city/projects/bc-parkway-illumination

[jollyburger]

Walk around of M Residence & Spa, 6433 McKay Ave & 6366 Cassie Ave, Burnaby, BC. Looks like an asbestos remediation is in progress

• Video Link

[Spr0ckets]

Originally Posted by Tvisforme

Douglas Todd had an interesting opinion piece about project renderings in Saturday's Vancouver Sun:

The only commentary I have about this is,.....

Does anyone really walk into a Burger King or a McDonald's expecting their Whopper or Big Mac to look as succulent, juicy, eye-popping and all-around vibrant as those ads on TV make them to look (.....and done with props that are almost in all likelihood, totally inedible)?

Is this person seriously that unfamiliar with the psychology and "art" (...and some would say, deception) of the field of advertising?

Because that's what renderings are at the end of the day.

Images created to sell, that may not necessarily reflect the end-user experience that will be actually experienced by the buyer.
In fact, most renderings literally carry this disclaimer in one form or another.
For good reason.
(**cough**litigation**cough)

And expecting architects to sign and seal renderings that were almost certainly not done by them, and more likely done by other professionals hired by the developer, - and in essence take legal responsibility for someone else's work, - is the height of delusion.

Having said all that, I do sympathize with their gripe.
It's hard to fault them wanting more accountability when you see some of the renderings put out there (like one of 601 Crescent Beach that didn't have any hint of Granville Bridge or any sight of the neighbouring Concord Pacific Towers next door, that was recently published. Or the ubiquitous "Lonely Tower in a field of grass with nairy a neighbouring tower or building in sight" to block your unit's views" renderings,.....when that's the opposite of the reality of the context it will be built in)

I think the real problem with these renderings that is at the nub of the issue and that we all know about, is that they are not meant or targeted for people who are actually going to spot that there's anything amiss about them when they greatly exaggerrate their context.
And also (let's be honest here), probably because most of that target demographic aren't actually going to live in those buildings.

If you're buying into a 601 Beach Crescent or even Vancouver House several years ago, and were blindsided by the reality that you'd be living next to a bridge because the rendering led you to believe that no such thing existed, then you kinda only have yourself to blame and not the developer/architect for selling their product with all means at their disposal.

[djmk]

holes were being drilled into the parking lot at the safeway at Willingdon and Hastings. North east corner

Anyone know why?

[jollyburger]

Originally Posted by djmk

holes were being drilled into the parking lot at the safeway at Willingdon and Hastings. North east corner

Anyone know why?

Crombie still owns it

This Safeway location in Burnaby Heights, BC, sits on 3.30 acres of land, and has the potential for both commercial and residential development in the future.

https://www.crombie.ca/development/east-hastings/