I’ve covered Project 200 – the massive urban-renewal proposal for Vancouver’s waterfront – a few times in the past: in Price Tags 20 and here on the blog. But Jason Vanderhill has done us all a real service by scanning the original 1968 report on to his Flickr stream so you can read all the gruesome details for yourself.
Irresistibly, though, I have to post a few of the best images here – beginning with the cover:
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The site would have demolished practically everything from Howe to Abbott Streets, north of Cordova, and covered over the rail tracks on the CPR yards, with a southern extension to Woodwards on the east side.
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The CPR station (now Waterfront) would have been ploughed under (but not, it appears, the Woodward’s department store) to be replaced by this modernist mixed-use complex:
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Its major public amenity was arguably the interconnected pedestrian plazas, elevated from the streets and above the tracks, that would have given access to the waterfront views. The rendering is in pure 1960s style, right down to a man with a pipe and a boy with a balloon:
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The project assumed a waterfront freeway that was part of the larger vision being promoted at the time, of a city connected to the Trans-Canada Highway to the east and west, and to Highway 99/I-5 to the south:
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From the freeway, access was provided directly into the parking garages below the towers:
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It may have been the death of the freeway proposal that ended the prospect of Project 200. But one piece did get built – Granville Square:
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To get a sense today of what our tomorrow could have been like, you can go to the north foot of Granville Street – the parking garage at grade, the sterile plaza above – and experience what Project 200 could have done to this city.
For more, including the text, go here.
Thanks for posting.
The platform over the tracks will eventually be built with the Waterfront Hub and surrounding office buildings over the tracks – just not in a brutalist modernist style and to perhaps to a smaller scale. It looks like the stepped buildings are either hotels or apartments.
I wonder whether Woodward’s would have survived if the office core has remained closer to Hastings rather than moving south and west to Burrard and Georgia.
I am glad that at least 1 tower of project 200 was completed, for it adds a nice dash of variety downtown in our overwhelming sea of blue / green glass.
Also I like the Granville Plaza, I often go there when I am downtown, it is a great spot to simply watch the ports or snap some good photos.
The entire project built would have been a complete mess, yes, but this one portion I actually enjoy.
Edit: The elevation plan provided at the link (p[hoto 25) shows that a number of the taller towers as well as the stepped building are apartments. There is also a highrise hotel.
As is the current plan, the report indicated that there would be an integrated transportation hub – for “commuter, inter-city, intra-urban and airport services” as well as “the future City rapid transit system”.
I wonder whether VIA services would have been retained at Waterfront Station if it had been rebuilt as a hub back in the early 70s, rather than outside the core at Pacific Central Station (and whether Pacific Central would have met the afte of the adjacent train station (Great Northern?)).
Interesting stuff.
I agree that Granville Square is a nice place to take in the view – but it has largely been usurped by canada Place and the new convention centre addition (Jack Poole Plaza). And in future, Granville Sqaure will be landlocked and the view point moved to the north.
I think the final built form and style would also also have depended on the timeline for build-out (i.e. market forces would play a role). If the construction timeline was 10 or 20 years (as it has been for Concord Lands), the newer towers would likely have a different architectural style than the older ones.
Even Pacific Centre changed the cladding on the Four Seasons and the (now) Canaccord Tower prior to construction after public complaints – bothr were originally to be dark brown (“black”) like the TD Tower and (former) IBM Tower. The 777 Dunsmuir addition to Pacific Centre takes it one step further and bears no resemblance to the original 70s project.
Sure wish this project had been realized – especially the much-needed freeway links to the TCH. Imagine – this is the third largest metropolatin area in the largest country in the world and you have to take First or Broadway of 12th (or Hastings, as long as you watch out for the druggies) to get into town. Sooooo backward. And soooo sad!
This is only sad behind the windshield. For everyone outside the windshield, it’s a blessing. Car traffic in Vancouver is down while population is up. With a freeway, it would have surely been the other way around.
Would the people who lived near where the freeway would be placed enjoy the constant noise of you trying to speed downtown? Who would pay for the endless expansions of the freeway as more people try to drive more km?
No, it is not a blessing for everyone else Stuart. Ask the residents of McGilll, 1st or 12th how much of a blessing they consider it. And despite its flaws Project 200 would have removed much traffic from the downtown street grid, leaving them positively bucolic compared to today.
I’ve got an idea,…. don’t like your drive to work, move.
Vancouver downtown is great compared to the wasteland of Toronto and Ottawa with their downtown freeways. And no one was going to pay enough taxes to bury their freeways the way Montreal did.
The current downtown is not particularly pretty .. Vancouver is nice only along the waterfront .. English bay, Stanley park, Coal Harbour, Yaletown, Olympic Village, Granville Island .. the rest of downtown Vancouver is a grid with narrow sidewalks .. not that great actually .. FAR more greening and car removal is still required
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The only people who complain about the lack of a freeway through the city aren’t for the city so their opinions are irrelevant.
I see .. no divergent views allowed here ?
Sure they are, they are also allowed to move to Surrey, where roads are aplenty.
Reblogged this on Rob Nordrum.