This just in: the rezoning application for “Marine Gateway” at the Marine Drive Canada Line station in south Vancouver.
Busby Perkins+Will Architects, on behalf of PCI Development Corp. proposes a 952,250 sq. ft. mixed-use development comprised of a residential tower and an office tower over a 288,000 sq. ft. podium with retail space (including food and drug stores, cinemas and medical offices).
Residential use comprises 392,200 sq. ft. or 570 dwelling units, of which 187 units would be rental tenure under the Short Term Incentives for Rental (STIR) program. Building heights proposed are 262 ft. for the office tower and 372 ft. for the residential tower.
Oh boy.
Ambitious. I think I like it.
Yes, it looks a pretty good project.
The transit hub (note that I include the bus loop) integration is very well thought, and raise the bar to a level yet unknown west of Toronto.
I think this is awesome. This is how the Canada Line will really shine. The Canada Line could get a commuter from Marine Dr. to Downtown as fast as anywhere in the city. I’m at the age where I gotta start thinking about buying a place/settling down etc. The idea of moving (back) to the suburbs makes me shuter. I’d love to move out there if it meant cheaper prices.
This is a really good project it certainly will be a great piece to add to the area of that station and I only hope that its the beginning of a number of new buildings near and on the canada line route. I know many people that would love to buy a apartment near a station for the fact of the many positives of such. Its also a nice building.
I don’t want to completely dampen the celebration of this project so far in the comments. It looks good from a transit perspective and certainly from a design perspective. It sure will be striking if it’s built.
But we can’t leave the future of industrial land in the city out of this discussion of what is happening here. I don’t think we can afford to decide as a city that we are just going to abandon all the industrial land for a new, shiny post-industrial future as a condominium resort town that nobody can afford to live in and doesn’t have any jobs to offer aside from the lululemon shop either.
I’m glad there is an office tower attached to this project, but offices aren’t all that make a city and as peak oil begins to truly take its tole, especially, I think we’re going to see an upswing in the number of manufacturers in North America. We’re going to have to as transportation costs increase. While Vancouver is pursuing a responsible strategy for local food production, we’re ignoring the other end of the stick, and I don’t think all those plants should just be put in Surrey, Abbotsford or the interior.
We need to at least have this discussion. It won’t exactly be easy – there’s not really any land left to build on that isn’t developed already – but we’ve got to have it. And in the end we have to get over our fear of redeveloping single-family houses into projects like this one, because we don’t start doing that then industrial land is all we have left.
that building looks kinda hideous. like a bunch of containers stacked – perhaps that was the intent.
I’m not fond of the stacking container look. The emperor is wearing no clothes people this is not an attractive design.
Looks nothing like that now that the real plans are out…its more of a straight up building
Cool design. Put it somewhere else. Preserve the little industrial land that we still have.
Oh yeah… considering the lack of money in the City… they soon might decide to develop that wonderful little golf course on 49th… that would be profitable.
Tessa, you are right, “we can’t leave the future of industrial land in the city out of this discussion”.
But at the same time, one should recognize, that the industrial land” here are mostly used for warehouse and other storage purpose:
Not that there is nothing wrong with that: that is the nature of import/export industry revolving around harbour, but one should not over estimate the economic contribution (especially in term of job) and nuisance of such activities.
Eventually, one should shift of paradigm and not think too much in term of “industrial land” but more in term of “warehouse” space, which can be preserved, eventually increased, and still give way to project like the above described, making full use of the transportation infrastructure.
I totally agree with Tessa we really need to aggressively start to rezone and developing the single residential housing in the city thus putting more people in these areas and taking the pressure off industrial land. Although I am still in favor of the above project as it is a great model of what more buildings in the city should contain. This building is similar to the rise and I really love that building cause it has many uses and while having a small foot print and the use of the overall space as well as the fact that there is always people in the area makes for a much more safer area.
I think the best use of the RAV line, and of the Skytrain lines, would be to rezone the three or so blocks on either side to allow for apartment or mixed apartment/commercial buildings to a height of seven or eight stories, so twice the housing allowed for with the three story buildings, and with very large floors to accomdate family sized apartments. That should be done uniformly up and down the line, allowing for residential type setbacks and landscaping of the type you see on Cambie now, and in the West End, but unfortunately not in Yaletown. Taller structures near stations aren’t really the essential thing.
I agree that City and Metro authorities need to be thinking very hard about the supply of industrial land. As Vancouver puts more and more industrial land into condo usage, because that’s where the DCCs are, in the Valley we see proposals to exclude land from the ALR to provide more industrial acreage.
I think this can be treated as an isolated case, and as long as the residential development is not allowed to migrate farther out – i.e. it should NOT reach the riverfront.
Note that the first render shows white masses nort of Marine Drive, so this node should, hopefully be larger than the one project.
I don’t think there is a “fear” of rezoning single family housing for multi-family houisng – I think there the opposition from the public about doing so.
Maybe it’s the politicians who “fear” the loss of their jobs if they rezone for multi-family housing.
But I agree that the City should allow higher densities around all rapid transit stations – not just on previously consolidated parcels such as Oakridge Centre, former supermarket sites, former transit yards or warehouse sites. (Which I call “opportunitistic” rezonings, rather than district planned rezonings).
I also agree that the residential tower looks like a stack of containers. Previous renders for the project looked more appealing on the south side (but not the north side).
More information at the Marine Gateway website (public open house display boards, etc.):
http://www.marinegateway.ca
http://www.marinegateway.ca/documents/openHouseBoards032510.pdf
And at SkyccraperPage.com:
http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=141924&page=12
@Tessa
This site was previously an ICBC Claim centre, hardly an industrial use. The city has been pretty clear that only this site will be considered for non-industrial uses.
On another note, I’m not really sure how the car dealership to the south classifies as an industrial use.
The city has been willing to rezone single family to multi-family, but not on a large scale, and usually when it fits within the neighbourhood vision. Three recent examples are the townhouses nearing completion on Dunbar at 39th, the seniors housing approved on 41st at Balaclava, and the townhouses approved near Granville at 16th.
It would be nice if they did more larger rezoning. I think larger rezoning allows for better community planning and could be done in conjunction with upgrades to community centres and even addition of more public spaces and parks. I also like the idea of reducing road spaces in this process where possible. We could totally add things such as bike lanes, and make even make certain parts of these newly rezone areas no car areas which would be a really cool idea dedicating space only to bikes and pedestrians.
I don’t think you can really say it’s “just” warehouses. There’s a construction materials compnay, a company that makes winter sport accessories, a trucking company and a finished stone retailer to name a few that are within a few blocks of Cambie. And either way, would you rather all those warehouses move to Surrey, and then drive across the already congested Fraser River crossings to get to the port? What’s the greenhouse gas emissions of that? And also, the port of Vancouver is pretty reliant on these sorts of companies, and it’s hard to argue that the port isn’t a big economic generator for the area.
The car dealership isn’t industrial zoning I don’t think. I believe it used to be, but was another one of those encroachments. I wasn’t aware that ICBC was using it before, just that it’s apparently zoned industrial. If this is where the line is drawn I would be comfortable, however past experience has shown a very rapid depletion of industrial land in the city.
Now I’m not necessarily saying the industrial land has to be right next to the Canada Line station, but we shouldn’t remove it all from Vancouver. We’ve got to make a decision as to where we want to build it instead. Are we going to knock down single-family residencial areas for industrial land? Not likely.
If there’s nowhere else in Vancouver, as Rod says, it goes out to the valley.
Frankly, this is the sort of project that should also be going up at 41st and Cambie, and not just on the Oakridge property, but it’s not happening there because that’s a single family neighbourhood. So we end up losing industrial land instead. This has been the case for all of the “vancouver model” of development – we’ve yet to make the really hard choices.
@sungsu – as far as I’m aware there hasn’t been a single tower built on a site that was formerly single-family residential in decades. That was how we got neighbourhoods like the West End, but that level of rezoning isn’t happening anymore, though there are much smaller examples of multi-family as you point out.
For reference on the City’s position on its Industrial land policy south of Marine Drive, reference this report, – http://vancouver.ca/ctyclerk/cclerk/20090723/documents/penv7.pdf
– passed by Council in July 2009, in which Staff recommended the retention of I-2 & M2 industrial zoning south of Marine Drive from Angus to Knight St. – Marpole to Sunset communities.
Before this, in 2006, Planning had already restricted grandfathered uses (i.e. gyms, schools, large restaurants) in Marpole’s industrial lands and took these uses out of allowable industrial land uses in future. This position was strengthened in the 2009 report.
The PCI site is an anomaly due to its direct location at the Marine Drive station (and its rezoning was opposed by staff but supported by Council), but the Staff’s position (as per the 2009 Council report) is clear that no more I2 & M2 land south of Marine Drive will be ‘let go’ to other uses.
In terms of the rest of Cambie’s densification, reference City Staff’s Phase 1 Cambie Corridor Interim Rezoning Report from Jan 2010. Varying heights and levels of densification are recommended from Marine Drive station north to 16th Avenue. Changes are coming.
…. I’m sorry but am I the only one who is shocked by the sheer SIZE of the building? I am all for redeveloping the site and for increasing density with in the city, but this is just all wrong! I looked into the dementions for the building and it is going to be 350 ft tall and 250ft wide at the base. For those who live in the area thats 150 ft taller than a Langara Tower and 180 ft wider. How can the city be insulting the intellegence of the residents in the area by even proposing such a horrid display of Architecture gone wrong. Putting aside the conflicting and important questions of industrial land preservation and the need for densification near transit – Does anybody else get the scale of the residential building?
Cool?
Cool….is what the children who live here will be as they walk to the nearby school – all in the shadow of their own building. No need for sunscreen in Marpole, maybe Vitamin D supplements.
Cool….is what the Canada Line riders will be as they walk in complete shadow along neighbourhood streets and across Ash Park.
Cool….is what the social relationships will be with fellow residents in the building in the 200′ long corridors. Not sure, but I think there is over a mile of interior corridors in this building.
Cool….is what the residents will not be in the 1.7+ acres of west building face. Is that the largest west building face in Canada? What happened to passive solar design considerations?
This city is known around the world for Vancouverism – we’ve done tall and thin really well. Recently in SEFC, we’ve shown we can do lower and wide really well. So I guess the next logical step is tall and wide.
another good reason to leave Vancouver.
Hmm, this is an interesting development. It is quite a big on the massive scale though, too big. Personally, I would like to see more of the types of developments that people can actually live in and that are welcome in communities. I’ve just about had it with the “luxury” and “high end” condos. Who buys those things?
I’ve been looking through them, and their floor plans are downright insulting to anyone who wants a place to live in, not to mention the rapidly diminishing square footage and increasing price tag. What happened to space? Is it really that expensive to increase the floor space 10-20%? How many people actually want “lifestyle” over livable? Do people really want a solarium, a den, a fireplace and a dining room in a 1 bedroom apartment? Is granite and hardwood and stainless really that important?
I see all these buildings with chopped up floor space and no thought put into how people actually live. Very little for those who just want an affordable place to live. It’s atrocious that people working regular jobs in the city cannot afford to live there.
I agree with Tess that this site should be preserved for industrial uses. City of Vancouver has 3 lines of RRT with lots of station areas that are completely underutilized. If we are going to get over our collective fear of living in denser environments, then lets leave our already scarce industrial lands alone and find development opportunities at other rapid transit stations.
The decision was already made when the Canada Line was built. There will be increased residential and commercial density at every Canada Line station eventually. Probably Marine has the least NIMBY’s and maybe this development really should happen first at Oakridge or 41st or King Ed., but land prices are too high for industrial development as we currently understand it, anywhere in Vancouver. The only possibility might be innovative mixed use such as cheap industrial spaces in basement levels, “subsidized” by allowance for extra residential units.
Hey, aren’t we -supposed- to be providing people with places to live near where they can also work?
Cool building. (in the good looking sense)
Learn to love towers, fellow citizens.
I like Dave Peterson’s plan a lot, and its’ something I also have wondered many times why we don’t already do that, but I disagree that it’s not possible to have industrial uses in Vancouver, as there are successful businesses.
Thank you as well to Claudia for the reading. I do know staff take industrial land issues quite seriously, it’s just not always supported by the broader community.
Also, I do like this project in terms of its location next to transit, its density and its built form. It’s a different looking building than most in Vancouver – it doesn’t follow the boring old style of building residential towers, and thank goodness for that. I just think there shouldn’t be any net loss of industrial land, either. I think I’ve made my point, though, so thanks everyone for the good discussion on this building.
If you look at the first page of the SkyscraperPage.com link I posted above, you will see the original massing plans for the site – which were more “conventional” tower on podium in form.
I’m not sure how or why it went to the megatower / slab tower form.
Understandably Vancouver’s Planning Department has to tow a hard line on industrial rezoning otherwise they will be overwhelmed with hungry developers wanting a piece of the industrial pie.
Policy aside, I think common sense should prevail here. The truth is that there are too many better opportunities to densify in the City, particular for commercial uses that are vitally dependent on access to rapid transit. If we are serious about TOD then a development like this development will have the gravity to anchor the node. If this project does get the green light, The city would want to have a game play for the adjacent area, otherwise this node with likely to resemble Main St & Terminal, with mish-mash of mixed land use that fails to define the area.
With Vancouver’s ability to continually attract new inhabitants, inevitable something will be getting the ‘squeezed’, whether it is single family lots, rental housing, industrial zones. The trick is tho when the city is taking on a tough decision like this, we should demand the project is creative enough to be embraced by the public and bold enough that we can learn from it in times to come.
Dave Petersen
The only possibility might be innovative mixed use such as cheap industrial spaces in basement levels, “subsidized” by allowance for extra residential units.
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Actually, I recall hearing one of the Vancouver City planning staff argue that this type of thing will not work. Once any element of residential is added to the mix, the price/rent for the entire property escalates to the point where industry is no longer financially viable at that location.
The root problem, as always, is the irrationally high price of residential properties in Vancouver. City and regional zoning and transportation policies are designed essentially to produce that outcome, and they have worked.
“City and regional zoning and transportation policies are designed essentially to produce that outcome”
The same outcome happened across most of the US and many other countries. Did all the local governments have the same policies?
It’s the global housing bubble, silly, and the irrationally high prices in Vancouver have the same root cause as everywhere else – irresponsible lending and idiot buyers. Local policies have nothing to do with it. That’s just another way of saying “it’s different here”.
It’s not. Vancouver will shortly join the global housing bust.
Haven’t noticed anyone else comment on one of the reasons in favour of leaving the land for industrial use.
The waste transfer station.
Get the wind blowing the right way, and it really stinks in the area around the bus loop.
Hi James I was hoping to buy into there and live. Does it smell that bad?
It’s the global housing bubble, silly, and the irrationally high prices in Vancouver have the same root cause as everywhere else – irresponsible lending and idiot buyers. Local policies have nothing to do with it. That’s just another way of saying “it’s different here”.
It’s not. Vancouver will shortly join the global housing bust.
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I don’t think it’s silly to suggest that Vancouver has a rather special place in the Bubble Pantheon, having advanced its prices to a truly extraordinary degree for a regional city.
I too think this bubble will burst, but I have been saying that for thirty years and the local market keeps making a fool out of me. The introduction of the HST this July, and some higher interest rates later this year and beyond could be the start of a move towards price realism. We’ll know we’ve arrived there when rents and prices are in an appropriate ratio to make housing a rational investment option.
Yep, there is a waste transfer station near by. I go to work from the Marine Drive station everyday. Sometimes, the smell is unpleasant and everything is coated with a fine layer of dirt. From what I have read, the developer will be installing equipment at the waste transfer station to control the smell. Not sure how effective that is going to be.
Hi Bobby Thats my main concern. Is the smell that bad? Would u buy into there and live? Where did u read that PCI will be installing equipment at transfer station?
Tessa and Voody – I could be wrong – but you both sound like you have inside information and speak as though you are handling PR issues for this project.
here’s a little tidbit not everyone knows: the whole reason why the canada line isn’t exactly where the ICBC used to be is due to the fact that under the ICBC was sand… you can’t build on sand. But hey, come build, if you’re meant to be there come an earthquake you’ll survive; if not… yay!
Hilarious. I’m working PR? My comments were the first comment to express concern about building this kind of project on industrial land, so gosh, I must be a terrible PR person.
Not really sure where that comment came from…
born and raised in marpole and i think this building could be exciting, and well needed in our neighborhood. hopefully the price is right so i can get in. hopefully they keep in consideration the 1000s of low income aprartments in marpole and make a wise decision.
easy