One more building to come down before Emery Barnes Park is complete.
The corner of Seymour and Davie has been filled with a one-storey wood retail outlet and bar that, save for a drive-through cutaway, has crowded the sidewalks for years. Once it comes down, that corner – and this entire section of Downtown South – will seem transformed.
The City was picking up property on the site that has become the park since the 1990s, knowing that it would be the centre of a very dense neighbourhood. Where would the kids play? Where would the dogs walk? Where would the frisbee get thrown?
Downtown South was the first place where the City imposed a Development Cost Charge – a dollar amount based on the buildable square feet in all the new highrises that would sprout around the park that they would have then paid for.
Knowing the money was coming, the City moved in to aggressively buy up the properties for most of the block from Seymour to Richards, Davie to Helmcken. (The social-housing projects that front Helmcken of course stay.)
And without expropriating, the City got all the properties needed – except one. The one on the corner.
Nonetheless, the Park Board went ahead and built out half the park – and have almost completed the rest, surrounding the last hold-out. But now that the leases have run out, the blue fences are up and the bulldozers will imminently arrive. And Downtown South will have its promised park.
For more on Emery Barnes Park, including shots of what existed before, go here to Price Tags 37.
I could be wrong but I think the City does own that property, it’s just waiting for the leases to run out and decided to build the rest of the park while they wait.