South Burrard | Proposed

[M II A II R II K]

Squamish have power to radically change city skyline


May 21, 2010

By Miro Cernetig



Read More: http://www.vancouversun.com/business...882/story.html

The Squamish First Nation is going to reclaim its ancestral village in the heart of Vancouver by putting up two major condo towers that will block views to English Bay and the mountains and dramatically change the city skyline. An early draft of the development proposal features 35-storey and 28-storey condo towers on the south end of the Burrard Bridge, exactly where a giant billboard was erected by the first nation a few months ago. It will fundamentally block the view corridor the City of Vancouver has preserved for decades.

- The development, which also dramatically ramps up the density of Kitsilano, will bring an additional 2,000 parking spots and offices that will house thousands of workers. It's a real-estate play that could near the $1-billion range and generate massive profits. It's hard to fault the Squamish for thinking big. Like any developer, they want to squeeze as much profit out of the land as possible, which means density and height.

- But this massive development, which proposes the sort of density found in the Olympic Village, raises a major planning challenge facing all of Metro Vancouver, and British Columbia: the Squamish don't have to follow the rules of other developers if they don't wish. That's because the Squamish are proposing to build on their reserve land, once the site of a fishing village, which is owned by them and under federal jurisdiction. It means the first nation has no legal obligation to obey municipal zoning laws that other developers are obliged to follow when they build within the city.

- It's a serious concern for not just Vancouver, but also all cities where native land exists. The Squamish, for example, own much of the West Vancouver and North Vancouver waterfront. That means they can build there, too, as high and as dense as they wish. Other bands, such as the Musqueam, have similar parcels of land in Metro Vancouver that they can also develop under the same exemptions.

[s211]

They were trying to get the Feds to lease an office building there a few years ago. These are the basic plans floated before them at the time.

[DKaz]

Meh, all the power to them.

[PaperTiger]

Originally Posted by DKaz

Meh, all the power to them.

Exactly.

I didn't really like the tone of the article. Vancouver has already built mega projects on the rest of False creek, but the Squamish should leave theirs for traditional “urban green space”.

Come on.

[sacrifice333]

The building on the West side of Burrard will have some of the most unobstructed views in the entire city!!! Though if each and every building there is constructed as per that first render that could be a bit much.

I do hope the city and band can come to some agreements on the overall development preserving some view cones. Maybe dropping the heights slightly... a bit of a step down from the Green Monster height for the West building... and maybe cut out at least one of the buildings on the East side.

But in no way should the band be expected to leave the land as urban green space.

[phesto]

Why would they bother putting office space on this site? If their objective is to maximize profit, surely an all-residential development makes more sense, even in however many years this takes to materialize.

We've got half a dozen major rapid transit-oriented office projects that can't even get off the ground (including Downtown and Broadway)...proposing to add "thousands of workers" to a site that isn't anywhere near Skytrain and already has traffic problems doesn't seem like a great idea any way you look at it.

[sacrifice333]

^The East side of Burrard would mostly be hidden by the existing residential & office space and would be hard to sell, assuming a 99-year lease situation.

In contrast, building it as office space might be an attractive discount to downtown and would probably achieve sustainability goals for the band... i.e. leases!

The West side... with potentially AMAZING views and therefore easy to sell, even with the potential 99-year lease factor.

[idunno]

Hahaha "radically change" the skyline..... and it's not even really on the downtown peninsula!

[phesto]

Originally Posted by sacrifice333

^The East side of Burrard would mostly be hidden by the existing residential and would be hard to sell, assuming a 99-year lease situation.

In contrast, office space might be an attractive discount to downtown and would probably achieve sustainability goals for the band... i.e. leases!

The West side... with potentially AMAZING views and therefore easy to sell, even with the potential 99-year lease factor.

In Vancouver, it's ALWAYS a tougher sell for office than residential.

I'm not familiar with the sustainability goals of the Squamish FN, but I would be surprised if they were to forego revenue from condo sales (or sale to developer of pre-paid 99-yr land lease) versus the risk associated with owning and leasing office space long-term.

[officedweller]

Looks good - dense mid-rise clusters.

Agreed, that I think that the office sites are the types of sites that would, in other developments, be allocated to social housing stock - under the lip of the bridge or hidden behind other buildings.

I think that the office space will build on the existing Credit Union Central Building and the light industrial lands to the south.

One thing I don't see is an RoW for the streetcar - it should/would be along the axis of the three silvery gray buildings on the rendering - along the north edge of the Molson's site. I suppose the street could be made wide enough for it in a median but that parcel is narrow enough as it is (being primarily former CPR RoW).

[Yume-sama]

Not the "radical" change I had expected. Call me back when they wanna build a supertall on their land

[NetMapel]

Looks good to me. The south side of Burrard Bridge could use some more new developments.

[Spoolmak]

How is this even going to change the skyline at all?

[officedweller]

For completeness of the thread - here's the aerial posted by Prometheus in the General thread:

Originally Posted by Prometheus

Here is the latest photo from Global Air Photos which covers the area under discussion:



http://www.globalairphotos.com/image...h2010_0132.jpg

[paradigm4]

Originally Posted by PaperTiger

Exactly.

I didn't really like the tone of the article. Vancouver has already built mega projects on the rest of False creek, but the Squamish should leave theirs for traditional “urban green space”.

Come on.

Originally Posted by idunno

Hahaha "radically change" the skyline..... and it's not even really on the downtown peninsula!

Agreed. The tone of this article is completely out of line. It's journalism like this that causes half the polarization in our community. What a joke.

This development looks great. Also love how they've worked with Kasian to incorporate elements of traditional architecture into the building design. Only concern would be the height of the one tower. I'm sure the CoV will be able to express their desires and negotiate to some degree with the Squamish following that new MOU they just signed.

[jsbertram]

Originally Posted by officedweller

Looks good - dense mid-rise clusters.

Agreed, that I think that the office sites are the types of sites that would, in other developments, be allocated to social housing stock - under the lip of the bridge or hidden behind other buildings.

I think that the office space will build on the existing Credit Union Central Building and the light industrial lands to the south.

One thing I don't see is an RoW for the streetcar - it should/would be along the axis of the three silvery gray buildings on the rendering - along the north edge of the Molson's site. I suppose the street could be made wide enough for it in a median but that parcel is narrow enough as it is (being primarily former CPR RoW).

The old Trolley ROW in Kits was from a loop at Kits Beach to the False Creek CPR yards (over a trestle east of the present Burrard Bridge, as shown by the red line on this satellite view of the area today:



The blue curved line is the abandoned CPR tracks that curve around rhe Credit Union of BC building, and lead to a WYE. One branch heads east to the Granville Island Station of the Olympic Demonstration line, the other branch heads south to begin the Arbutus Corridor tracks that the CPR has also abandoned.

With the remaining portion of the trolley ROW running from Chestnut Street eastwards to the False Creek south shore, this ROW doesn't connect to anything anymore. I can see the redevelopment west of Burrard Bridge using this as a new roadway from Chestnut Street into the development, and possibly extending it eastwards under Burrard Bridge to provide better access to the Burrard Marina & the coastguard station, and also reduce the traffic that needs to use Whyte Ave to access the Burrard Marina, the parking lot, and the coastguard station.

I've been thinking for a while that the curved tracks provide an ideal alignment for a tunnel from Granville Island, under False Creek, and continuing as a subway under Burrard to the Convention Centre.



From the intersection of 1st ave, Pennyfarthing, and Fir a streetcar tunnel can be started that heads north following the blue line under False Creek and under Burrard St. The red line is the continuation of the streetcar line heading south to the Arbutus Corridor. The yellow lines are the alignment of the Downtown Streetcar that is being proposed by the City of Vancouver.


It would be a great loss if this new development prevented building this connection from downtown to South False Creek. It could be said that when the streetcar lines are built, the offices in this development could be easier to get to than offices that are actually downtown. I can certainly see myself 'commuting' from home at the Olympic Village to the office at this Squamish development - as long as there's a Tim Hortons along the way to get my morning JavaJolt.

[jsbertram]

Originally Posted by officedweller

For completeness of the thread - here's the aerial posted by Prometheus in the General thread:

This also shows how much larger the land taken up by Molsons is.
When the Squamish get going on their project, you can bet the Molson family will see the potential $billions$ they can make by moving the brewery out to some place with cheap land (Surrey? Langley? Coquitlam?) and redevelop their Burrard property into something of a cross-pollination between Bentall Centre (for offices) and Olympic Village (for condos). Perhaps not as tall as Bentall Centre, but at least as tall as what the Squamish could build.

[wrenegade]

Well it will radically change the skyline if you're living on the 1st-6th floor of any of the buildings in the Kits area, and that is what all the Nimbies will surely be screaming about.

Personally I think these renders look pretty decent to begin with. The article mentions 28 and 35 story towers but it looks to me that the one big one is 28 at the most. I'm pretty happy with the size, I am glad that they aren't proposing anything super tall, I'd prefer for the tallest of our buildings to be within the downtown core, preferably in the office district. A 60 story building there would look out of place (although the views over False Creek and Downtown AND Coal Harbour AND the North Shore Mountains would be insane).

I also thought the bulk of this development would be on the north/west side of the bridge (where that forest sits) and I'm pleasantly surprised at the density in the area. That being said, with all of that density planned and no streetcar plans it is a little worrying. Granville Island is a so-so anchor for the end of the line but this would be much much better. It should be something the city and translink push for. Definitely excited to see all of this plan out as well as ramifications on possible future development around Park Royal and the mouth of the Cap River.

[Millennium2002]

I'm somewhat disappointed that they didn't reserve land for a LRT tunnel or something. On the other hand they may see it as a land grab against their development... and it already looks pretty good to the point that I don't want to see it go. Hmm.

[Prometheus]

In this photograph from 1982, you can see a portion of the old train tracks that curved around the Credit Union building, including the rail trestle that used to cross False Creek:



http://www.globalairphotos.com/image...ch1982_071.jpg