CF Pacific Centre Developments

[Hed Kandi]

..

[Porfiry]

Originally Posted by itinerant

Square donut, with atrium in the centre open to the sky all the way to the bottom, with offices facing inward.

Good lord, what a depressing place that would be.

[itinerant]

Originally Posted by Porfiry

Good lord, what a depressing place that would be.

That depends a lot on how big the donut hole is, if you have skylights elsewhere, or other mechanisms for lighting the interior. However, just for sake of discussion, this could just as easily be a 'U' configuration as well, removing a portion of one side of the building to open up the interior.

The floor plate is huge, so if there is any consideration for getting natural light to the interior offices, one would need to cut out some portion of the centre of the building in the form of an atrium or light wells for example.

[spaceprobe]

the new proposal is bland and boring. The original toilet bowl is far better...just keep it clean!

If they want windows....then add windows, but keep the original shape and design. It looks much more modern and, despite the urinal references, is actually a worthy design. Make the street level better, keep the walls clean, add windows if required.

[officedweller]

Originally Posted by Hed Kandi

Meanwhile in Tokyo...

The banding on the Howe/Robson corner could be a second skin (with the outer layer being fritted glass providing shade)
- if so, then that could allow for lighting effects between the layers of glass.

The thing I also find a bit odd is that if the beige sandstone is Nordtsrom's "brand" - it's a bit piecemeal in the render.
It doesn't present a cohesive/consistent facade across the length of the building like the Salt Lake City store or other locations.

That suggests to me that the Howe Robson corner may be configured as a "forecourt" for Nordstrom
and an entrance to the new underground level of Pacific Centre mall space (i.e. escalators going down just inside the corner).

That could consititute an "entrance" to the existing Canada Line Station passage via the reconfigured Sears basement.

Note that "Retail Insider" quoted a size of 225,000 sq ft for the Nordstrom, which is a bit less than 3 full floors
(i.e. 3 full floors would be 600,000 divided by 7 floors X 3 floors of Nordstrom = about 257, 000 sq ft)
- the forecourt could be the missing space
(as well as provide a lobby and new (or use the existing) elevator core for access to the upper office floors
with easy access to the Robson Law Courts).


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Originally Posted by SpongeG

its hard to tell but it looks like they have an entrance mid building on the robson side?

The dark vertical rectangle that ends at the 3rd floor? -
I think that's the blank signage people were looking for.
I also see another blank white vertical sign (ending at the 3rd floor) hidden among the Robson Square banners.

**************

Now - what I'm interested in seeing is how the Georgia/Granville rotunda will be treated
- will the first two floors be clad in beige sandstone?, maybe with punched windows?

[SpongeG]

street level entrance... like they punched a new one out for the store - the two current corner entrances are quite awkward and a more centered entrance on robson side would be good

[Darren Tate]

Originally Posted by Hed Kandi

Meanwhile in Tokyo...

Vancouver is not Tokyo. Deal with it.

[Darren Tate]

Originally Posted by Vancouver_Highrise

I can't believe anyone is complaining about this.. do you not see what this is replacing?!!? For all you know the granville front could meet some of your expectations...

Agreed. What a bunch of whiners. The building that everyone has unanimously hated for decades is finally getting re-skinned, and now people are complaining that it won't look like something from the Las Vegas strip. While the rendering doesn't exactly get my heart pumping, it's still a billion times better than what is there now. Hell, even a vacant lot would be better.

[SpongeG]

lets just make everyone happy and do this in the spot


soapboxmedia.com

[SpongeG]

anyway - would nordstrom need to open a Canadian head office? if so they would probably take some of the office space in the building? they would probably like having its office close to its main head office in seattle

[Hed Kandi]

..

[trofirhen]

now you're talking

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by Hed Kandi

Yes in fact, my thinking is this...If Vancouver's real estate prices are nearly in line with that of Tokyo, is it not also fitting that one should expect the same level of excitement, display, and spectacle as that of Tokyo?

Or is Vancouver simply a case of paying for more than what you get?

Bingo. Check back in 5 years.

[LeftCoaster]

Originally Posted by Prometheus

I am so embarrassed for Vancouver. This is taking our reputation for blandness and small thinking to unprecedented (and hitherto inconceivable) lows.

Why on earth would anyone waste so much money on creating absolute nothingness? My God. Compared to this ridiculous proposal, the current facade is vastly more modern and has vastly more potential. If this is all we can expect, then it would be far superior (and far cooler) to just spend a fraction of the budget and simply restore the current facade to its original gleaming state and make intelligent use of some funky colour programmable LED lighting, turning the ivory surface into a dynamic, sparkling gem, thus adding to the electric character of Granville Street, not injecting it with sedatives.

This is so uncreative and small-minded that it is immoral.

Your lack of understanding of simple real estate economics is astounding.

Originally Posted by itinerant

Square donut, with atrium in the centre open to the sky all the way to the bottom, with offices facing inward. Garden on top for the worker bees, and perhaps lunch crowd on rooftop restaurant. Which leaves open the opportunity to go higher by a few floors, as well, since the open hole would leave room to use up some of that floorspace to restore their FSR.

Good luck renting that for roughly 1/5th of current market rates. Office leasing is a highly competitive industry and a tenant isnt going to pay anywhere near the rent curve for somehting as user unfirendly as that design. In order to make this project financially viable it must be competitive with new build product going up around the city.

Originally Posted by itinerant

That depends a lot on how big the donut hole is, if you have skylights elsewhere, or other mechanisms for lighting the interior. However, just for sake of discussion, this could just as easily be a 'U' configuration as well, removing a portion of one side of the building to open up the interior.

The floor plate is huge, so if there is any consideration for getting natural light to the interior offices, one would need to cut out some portion of the centre of the building in the form of an atrium or light wells for example.

Ok so there goes all of your rentable area, once again making this project financially unviable.

Originally Posted by SpongeG

anyway - would nordstrom need to open a Canadian head office? if so they would probably take some of the office space in the building? they would probably like having its office close to its main head office in seattle

It will likely be in Vancouver but it wont be very large.

[LeftCoaster]

Originally Posted by osirisboy

Im confused as to why there cant be an increase in FSR? whats the reasoning why this current council doesnt want to increase it?

Jlousa pretty much nailed this one.

The rezoning would take ages and would not have been nearly worth it. keep in mind while the rezoning was going on CF would be holding an empty 600,000sf building, missing out on income and paying millions in taxes. Shutting down for 2 years is incredibly expensive already.

There has been a lot of work put into this project, and believe me a complete redevelopment including a very tall building was analysed, but it wouldn't have worked for both financial and approval reasons.

[itinerant]

Originally Posted by LeftCoaster

Good luck renting that for roughly 1/5th of current market rates...for somehting as user unfirendly as that design. ...so there goes all of your rentable area, once again making this project financially unviable.

Would you be arguing that for the office space to be competitively rentable that it must have outward facing windows and use the entire floorplate? I admit that raising height to meet FSR in the square donut would be an issue because there are height restrictions in the zoning (or at least I assume this is the case here).

The friendliness aspect I have to disagree with. What I was suggesting is that the redevelopment be open to creating voids within the overall volume to break it up and make plates that were workable for natural light and that could be subdivided into efficient and 'rentable' spaces.

Without the flexibility of adding height somewhere, I cannot see an renter-attractive office solution that would not need to cut out some space, and consequently reduce FSR. Or do you really want to keep the entire floorplate?

[Track]

Honestly? I don't mind this. Granted, it's not nearly as exciting as it could be, and i'd rather have almost any other colour of stone on the ground floor, but it's miles ahead of what's currently there.

[officedweller]

The Eaton's building was quite cutting edge in its day before the renovations big boxified it and the lighting effects fell into disrepair.

If they had repolished the marble aggregate slabs and changed the backlit spandrel panels to colour-changing LEDs - it would have kept the building "current".

See 1981 pic here of the backlit spandrel above each entrance alcove and behind the vertical sign.

Originally Posted by officedweller

FINALLY!
A photo showing the illuminated spandrel bands
across the top of each entrance alcove!
The spandrels say "EATON'S EATON'S EATON'S" in a strip along the bottom edge.
Think of the missed opportunity in the 1999 renovation.


1981. Eaton's store on Granville at night.
Photograph by: Ralph Bower, Vancouver Sun

The approach taken to the renovation is expected nowadays - reduce the scale of the massing to a "human" scale.
i.e. like Electric Avenue located diagonally acroos Robson Square.

The only recent new build I can think of that does not conform to that principle is the New Convention Centre.

[Pinion]

We went from a fairly unique looking building that was poorly maintained to another square glass box. I remember being wowed by the building when I moved here in the mid 80s - I almost would have preferred the money to be spent on maintenance and ground level renos only if I knew this was the alternative.

Sure it looks ok now but in 20 years it'll be maligned like the rest of Vancouver, minus a few anomalies like the library and Science World.

Even the Chapters across the street is more interesting.

[connect2source]

Originally Posted by officedweller

The Eaton's building was quite cutting edge in its day before the renovations big boxified it and the lighting effects fell into disrepair.

If they had repolished the marble aggregate slabs and changed the backlit spandrel panels to colour-changing LEDs - it would have kept the building "current".

See 1981 pic here of the backlit spandrel above each entrance alcove and behind the vertical sign.



The approach taken to the renovation is expected nowadays - reduce the scale of the massing to a "human" scale.
i.e. like Electric Avenue located diagonally acroos Robson Square.

The only recent new build I can think of that does not conform to that principle is the New Convention Centre.

True!! The original 1970's building was even better, before the 'toilet seat' 2 floor cap, it was true modernism and countered the TD Tower brilliantly, a vertical black slab and a horizontal white slab on it's side. The EATON'S signage aligned with all grids as well. The 1999 'eatons' exterior updates were a disaster and destroyed the alignment and grids and I worry such short sightedness, in the attempt to add more trendy elements, will yield nothing better and will look dated and chaotic in a few years.