This is becoming an endangered scene in the post-motordom city:
Another case of under-performing asphalt. Too valuable to remain a surface parking lot.
This site, and a lot of other gray desert, can be found in the middle of the north loops of the Granville Bridge:
That’s going to change as the loops are redeveloped and the roads replatted – just as has already occurred at the southeast corner of the bridge.
On the left, the clover-leaf loop is still intact. On the right, where 4th Avenue shifts to Sixth, the circle has been triangulated, requiring two right turns to get on to Granville Bridge.
The north loops will be squared – as the loops are demolished and replaced with a grid of streets and rectangular lots suitable for resale and development. (More backstory here.) The plan has been in the works since the late 1990s – the flowering of an idea by designer Frank Ducote, planner Richard Johnson, and engineer Lon LaClaire.
It went out for public review in January 2008 – the details and displays are here. The Policy Plan was approved in October 2010. If you want the latest, go the Granville Loops page on the Planning Department’s website – where you’ll find some images that are drawing attention (like the one on the right), now that changes in the heights of buildings proposed in the area are under scrutiny.
As important as the parcels available for development is the money that will flow from their sale to fund street improvements. By redesigning the Loops, the City will not only garner a tree-lined pedestrian route from Granville Street to False Creek but also about $100 million in other public benefits and upgrades, including the pacification of Pacific Boulevard.
There’s been a plan for years (partly implemented between Richards and Homer) to tame this expressway, designed at provincial scale when BC Place Stadium was built in the early 1980s – and some of the money would be used to redevelop along the lines recommended by urban designer Allan Jacobs. But that’s just what’s on top. In some ways, what’s happening under the bridge will have a greater impact – potentially a complement to Granville Island under the south side of the bridge, albeit much more modest in scale.
The piered and steeled section under Granville between Pacific and the Seaside Bikeway is one of the most dramatic urban spaces in the city:
Since the city owns the land and buildings in the bridge’s right-of-way, the idea is to create a neighbourhood shopping village, anchored with a much-needed grocery store to serve what’s called Granville Slopes – the neighbourhood in between the West End and Yaletown.
The challenge: to give it life and vitality. No buildings over three storeys, no parkades. Stalls and seasonal structures allowed – since the bridge still has to be serviced from below. Some of the existing structures have been used, and could again, for studios and, um, for creative freelancing.
Say the guidelines:
The character and building elements of Granville Island offer direction for the design of the buildings. … soft landscape will be minimal and play less of a role in establishing the centre’s identity. More reliance on the design of lighting, signage and celebratory/display systems will be necessary to humanize this challenging environment for pedestrians.
For more details, here are “Under the Granville Bridge Neighbourhood and Commercial Centre Policy and Guidelines” – for those of you who actually get off on this stuff.
Nice irony here: the vastly overbuilt Granville Bridge (too high, too wide, and at eight lanes can never even reach its design capacity) will at least serve to provide cover for another pedestrian-oriented urban space.
Thanks for this..I think the approach is intriguing…..just one question for now (assuming this will work from a traffic point of view)…is the ‘Gateway Towers’ proposal set out in the new building heights/views/capacity study consistent with the above illustrated vision, or does the current proposal increase the height of the towers at the north end of the bridge?
Thanks from me too. I had no idea this was in the works, and you do a great service highlighting it.
I didn’t check, but did the Vancouver 2050 images you posted the other day include this change, removal of Dunsmuir viaduct, the broadway streetcar etc.?
See you at the Playhouse tonight?
Wow. I hadn’t seen the proposed market space under the bridge. I think that’s a great idea – it always looks so bleak right now, but there’s still a lot of pedestrian traffic in the area. I think that could work wonders.
Yes, this is an interesting proposal. I am wondering, though, what made you write this post today? Is the proposal for the commercial area under the bridge moving ahead? It seems to me to have stalled… And the only development underway in the Loops area can, if I’m not mistaken, go ahead without removal of the east loop.
I am very hopeful that the normalizing of the Granville Loops will be a great addition to the city. The success of the elimination of the eastern loop on the south side of the Bridge makes me feel that the west side should be treated the same way and a more functional park developed on that side when resources are accrued through CACs as lots are redeveloped in the area. Ideally the redesign of the west side of the south loops would include a safer, brighter connection to the west side of the park beneath the bridge along Fourth Avenue and a redesign/renovation of the underground walkway close to Fifth Avenue.
As for the Granville Island-like market district on the north side of False Creek beneath the bridge, I think that the idea has a lot of merit, especially if it could prominently feature a year-round farmer’s market. The proposed Burrard Gateway project at Burrard and Drake streets may well include a grocery store and I think that sort of location would be much more attractive to the grocery industry than a place beneath the bridge. However if this city has learned anything over the last couple of decades of neighbourhood building it is that more grocery stores is better than fewer grocery stores. If a company is ready to go forward with a grocery store in the Burrard Gateway project and the City can attract a grocery store to the area beneath the bridge, well then I can’t imagine the neighbours will have anything but good things to say about the commercial amenities of their neighbourhood.
Good piece, Gord. Thanks for posting.