Adam Fitch sends in a comment in response to the most recent Price Points: Vancouver’s Newest Neighbourhood. It’s worth reprinting here – and illustrating:
… another interesting piece, particularly in comparing South East False Creek (the Olympic Village site and the adjacent city-owned development areas to the east and west of it) [map here] and the private development lands to the south, between First and Second Avenues, to North False Creek (the Expo lands/Concord Pacific site), Yaletown and Downtown South. And comparing Second Avenue to Pacific Boulevard.
Everyone should go down to the Concord Pacific sales centre off Carall Street and Pacific Boulevard and have a look. They have a series of three fantastic photo-murals, showing the history of the area in oblique aerial photographs, showing its state in the 1960s/70s, 1986, and around 2010.
To see the change is amazing. What one can see most clearly is that prior to the development of pacific boulevard and expo, the “expo lands” was a giant railyard, and Yaletown and Downtown South were a sleepy area with ABSOLUTELY NO development going on. The division between them was simply the end of the railyards, and it was stark.
It is obvious that the change that occured between 1980 and 2010 was the result of a very deliberate and well-thought planning and development process.
1986:
.
2010:
.
Furthermore, consider that Yaletown is a designated heritage preservation district, and that Downtown South is a planned redevelopment area that absorbs the demand for downtown development and relieves the development pressure on Yaletown to a great extent.
In comparison, south of Second Avenue, up to 7th or 8th avenue, I think, the area between Cambie and Main is designated as a commercial/industrial area, where the preservation of employment is priorized over development. I believe that for the foreseeable future, this area will be frozen in time with no new development.
Second Avenue will mark the boundary, and for the reasons stated, I think that it will develop over time to be a quite different kind of street from Pacific Boulevard. For the short term it will be a bi-character street, with new high density residential development on the north side, and old low density commercial and industrial development on the south side.
But over the longer term, the pressure to allow new development on the south side of Second will be intense, and eventually it will be released for development.
The progression of development south of 2nd is clearly foreseeable to anyone either familiar with either the area or the city’s history of development.
There’s already that one condo building (with the fin) and one social housing building on the south side near the police station – and I think there are some live-work projects in there as well. As well as live-work building encroaching the district from the south of Broadway side and the west of Main side – really – from all 4 sides!
Most of the projects on the north side of 2nd Ave. seem to have streetfront retail – which is compatible with the industrial retail on the south side. There’s one exception though – the Pinnacle building at (I think) Crowe, which has townhouses facing 2nd Ave.
January 29, 1980. Premier Bill Bennett reveals plans for BC Place, ALRT, Transpo 86, and a Trade&Convention Centre. We’re still feeling the aftershocks of that day.
In an alternate universe, Bennett lost the 1979 election, Erwin Swangard succeeded in his plans to build a “multiplex” at the PNE.
Not many photos can be pinned down to an exact date; the first photo shows the BC Place roof partially inflated, November 14 1982 (Ok, I cheated to find the exact date) . A nice crisp fall day, I’m one of the pixels on the point near the log boom (!)