Quote:
Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin
What I mean by that though, is that "building a lot" doesn't necessarily translate into supertalls. Sufficient demand and the right regulatory environment is enough to build lots of multi-family dwellings, but supertalls require specific conditions like extreme land values and/or a high-end market niche for that to make it feasible (eg. Sort of like how Chicago still builds more supertalls than Toronto despite there being a lot more construction here overall).
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We're talking about Metro Vancouver's next tallest though, not supertalls. The tallest in Vancouver right now is only 201m. IIRC,
Gilmore Place in Burnaby, is slightly proposed taller only at 214.8m. And
Concord Metro town is proposed at 230.1m.
The city of Vancouver itself has got one of the most extreme high-end markets in North America so you would think that that specific factor would be springing up taller towers left and right but there are plenty of city policies that affect the construction of taller towers
(and I really don't want to get into it on here as it would be way to off-topic lmao).
Quote:
Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin
In Surrey's case the growth seems to be driven by low cost of living moreso than any particular desirability of the place.
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True but also it's changing drastically. Downtown Surrey is becoming the new condo-land. Condos in Surrey are still expensive compared to other parts of Canada, and SFH's are certainly going up in value as well. These prices are starting to become comparable to the city of Vancouver. And Burnaby is already pretty much on par with the city of Vancouver (COV) when it comes to prices vs. value. The lower costs also spillover into employers seeking infrastructure to develop onto as well.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin
Burnaby is more desirable and is therefore more likely to realise the market conditions that would enable a supertall. Though, the most realistic prospect for a supertall in Metro Van's foreseeable future would still be for the City to lift some height limits downtown.
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Burnaby is a bedroom community for the city of Vancouver
and there is nothing wrong with that. Even with Burnaby's recent influx of development, Surrey still has
double the population of Burnaby. And Surrey is projected to overtake Vancouver in population in the future.
Burnaby has a lot of great benefits including excellent access to the metro municipalities north and south of the Fraser river, a decent amount of industrial land, and multiple town centres that are anchored by malls that were built in the '60s-'80's (which has its own set of pros and cons in of itself). But a lot of Burnaby's strengths is reliant upon the COV being out priced for regular working Vancouverites, as well as the COV retaining its status as the largest employment centre in BC. To me, Burnaby is just in a super convenient location to piggy-back off of the economic short-comings of the municipalities that surround it like Coquitlam and Vancouver.
Whereas Surrey differs and pulls ahead from Burnaby is that it kind of acts like a mini-Vancouver to the metro municipalities south of Fraser as it hosts a large amount of employment opportunities in of itself. With the Expo line extension into Langley, it is going to better connect the municipalities South of Fraser (SOF) to Surrey while re-activating and up-zoning some of Surrey's town centres like Fleetwood and (hopefully) Clayton/Cloverdale. I can never seem to find the link but most transit trips made SOF have Surrey as their final destination (with the COV in second). My point here is that Surrey behaves more independently (economically-wise) from Vancouver and that it behaves as an economic destination whereas Burnaby behaves like a bedroom community that folks from Coquitlam and Surrey pass through to get to the COV.
Changing City
in another thread was able to pull some office numbers to compare with:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Changing City
Office space under construction:
Surrey Centre 312,179 SF,
Metro Core 4,313,000SF (17 projects)
Office space approved:
Surrey Centre 1,171,996 SF,
Metro Core 2,624,000 SF (14 projects)
Office space proposed:
Surrey Centre 2,233,205 SF,
Metro Core 2,852,000 SF (8 schemes).
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I don't think that he was able to get the exact numbers for each municipality (?) so I get that it's hard to compare to Burnaby's office developments, but he was able to get the ones for Surrey which shows that there is a lot of interest in developing office space in Surrey. Plus we have the
federal government interested in developing an HQ near Surrey Central, which will help to further anchor Surrey as an important municipality for the metro regions SOF. Please keep in mind that a lot of the office sq. ft. is in mixed-use towers.
Yes, in the next 3-5 years, Burnaby will have impressive projects that probably include the development of BC's next tallest. But Surrey has got so much more in the pipeline that it will catch up to Burnaby quite quickly (and even out-pace Burnaby) and Surrey is going to have a more diverse economic framework to develop its skylines better than Burnaby if it chooses to do so. And I honestly do believe that Surrey is going to have all of the stars aligned to develop BC's next set of tallest towers due to all of the economic factors I listed above, along with the COV's reluctance to build taller. The next set of BC's tallest towers will also come in the form of an office/residential mix as well. But we'll see.