wow... i've always looked at that field and wondered how it survives without being developed. great location.
Union Station was on that site until 1962 when it was demolished. It became redundant when CN took over operations of the Grand Trunk Railway and Great Northern Railways (and the CN (Pacific Central) Station sufficed). Rail sidings ran into the back of the station, as they do for the existing Pacific Central Station.
The Great Northern and Canadian National stations (ca. 1919).
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The Great Northern station (1917-1962) on Vancouver's False Creek, known as Union Station since it was shared with the Northern Pacific Railway. The first photograph shows the station as it looked in 1924, followed by an interior view from the late 1940's.
1929 map from the same webpages:
Here's the site in 1982 - in Global Air Photos - still actively used by the railways (note the Skytrain "test track"). Other pics show the land still used in 1986 but mostly cleared by 1992.
Last edited by officedweller; Feb 8, 2008 at 8:19 AM.
^ looking at those pictures, it reminds me about proposals a century ago to build a 50,000 seat stadium at Coal Harbour in Stanley Park as well as a streetcar line around a new seawall. But of course, Vancouver wouldn't be Vancouver without its NIMBY's and any World War I killed any further thought about it with Stanley Park being turned into a garrison (the one and only anti-aircraft gun during the war...the gun in Victoria didn't work, it shot backwards ).
not bad, but i hope it doenst take up the entirety of that brownfield. Thats a HUGE site, and in such a historic area...the train station should be more complimented by adjacent buildings than have something like this take away from its architectural merit - i mean, that is one of the city;s prettiest buildings. why not extend some of the adjacent streets, get more of a mixture of uses in there, and have the hospital take up less space, make it a bit higher, and place it on a podium that is similar in height to the train station and with similar architectural design?
I'd love to see the inside of Officedweller's computer...I bet he's got thousands of directories, with names like "obsure documents re. rail track redevelopment - NDP, Feb. 1986" and "buildings >3 stories, white marble, no spandrels, Oct. 1901- Nov.1902"
...geez dude, you must be the ex-librarian for your law firm!
I saw Minister Abbott on Global about two months ago and he was starting to waver on the form and timeline on this P3. He mentioned something like 5 - 10 years in whatever form it takes.
looks good... but is a PRIVATE hospital..... Second, you need a hospital in the DT core! this is way to close to MSJ
MSJ is barely a hospital. Also what news bulletin did i miss where this was going to be a private hospital? It will be developed as a P3 then run by providence health care.
The only people who lose from this hospital are residents of the west end, as this will be just as accessable to the DTES, Yaletown and even the commercial core as St Paul's was. Burrard is often a congested mess around St. pauls and the ambulances got stuck far too often.
^The heritage portion of St. Paul's downtown will remain and operate as a hospital with emergency services and such. All of the long-term, major surgery type stuff will be moved to the new facility. The plan was to sell off the newer portions to developers and use the money for both upgrading the heritage portion and go toward the new facility on the false creek flats.
A bit short-sighted to build on land next to the train station that will likely be needed for expanded rail service in the future. The lack of a long-term passenger rail vision for this region is problematic especially with the recent moves towards high speed rail in the States.
There is still plenty of expansion land around Pacific Central... and besides the station is underused as it is, so any increase in traffic would only fill it to capacity at this point. Most of the rail growth is also not directed to the Pacific NW,as this is an area that would not be served well by rail. The densities are too low and the cities are too far apart. The only line that would make any sense is a N-S line from Vancouver to Portland and that certainly wouldn't take up too much space... just look at eurostar rail in London, it only takes up a small part of one station.
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