Update.
First a letter from Michael Geller to Planning Director Brian Jackson:
Brian,
Members of the planning and architectural communities regret not having had an opportunity to review this most concerning proposal, along with a chance to talk face to face with city staff.
While the application is not a rezoning, it is a significant Development Permit application as evidenced by the considerable media attention and public commentary it has attracted.
May I therefore again request that staff organize an Open House at which the design community and general public can study the full submission including the video which you mentioned in an earlier email, and model which just arrived a few days ago, in order to provide constructive commentary.
If this means a postponement of the March 9 DP Board meeting, so be it.
Having served as an Advisory Member on the DP Board for 6 years, I know how challenging it can be to comment on a proposal without prior opportunity to examine it.
Now that you can gauge the increasing public interest and concern, I trust you would agree that to allow such a controversial project to proceed to the DP Board without any Open House or other form of public consultation would be a most inappropriate decision.
I look forward to hearing back from you.
Michael
.
And Brian’s response:
Michael
Thank you for your e-mail and your suggestion for an open house.
As you know, the item is scheduled for the Urban Design Panel onWednesday, January 28th. If the application is supported that the UDP, then I think it would make sense to have an open house prior to the Development Permit Panel for the public to view the model, discuss the concept with the architect, and provide another opportunity for public comment.
If the application is not supported by the UDP, and a re-design is recommended, then the open house would be postponed.
Brian
Below is the letter sent on Jan. 22 to the City (meeting the deadline for public commentary) why, in my opinion, this Development Application should not be approved in its proposed form.
This letter is submitted to object to the Development Application (555 West Cordova) by Cadillac Fairview. After review of relevant City Zoning and Guidelines, including the 44 page Central Waterfront Transportation Hub Framework adopted by Council June 11, 2009 and the applicant’s submission, I find the proposal entirely INCONSISTENT with the intent and vision of the Hub Framework document and the spirit with which Vancouver’s discretionary zoning is to be applied. It is crystal clear that the Hub Framework overall and its Illustrative Concept Plan (p. 35 of this 44-page comprehensive, highly professional, Council-approved document, employing all the best urban design principles), foresaw on The Station easterly parking lot (proposed site) a Cordova-fronting public plaza, with a small floor plate 11-storey building sensitively set back into the northeast “knuckle” of The Station. Sufficient width is provided adjacent the easterly Landing heritage building for the necessary future Cordova Connector (street) that will serve the future Transit Concourse and future major 26-storey buildings to the north.
The proposal seeks to confer onto this undersized, constrained parking lot site development density and height of a size and scale that clearly was intended for the expansive development area to the north that would sit over the railway tracks. We understand why a developer would try this on….it is their job to maximize development potential and thereby financial gain for their investors while minimizing their development costs. Fair enough. And we further understand that liberties can be taken with Guidelines and Concept Plans adopted by Council – WHEN SUCH LIBERTIES RESULT IN A BETTER LONG-TERM SOLUTION FOR THE CITY and its citizens. But this is decidedly not the case here. By allowing Cadillac Fairview to acquire substantial development density and height for its tiny, constrained site while allowing it to avoid the arduous and expensive undertaking of building over the railway tracks, where this density was intended to go, will likely DELAY, rather than “kick-starting” development of the Hub and associated public and private benefits. The take-up of office space demand by this proposed tower will leave little incentive for the other stakeholders to pursue their now diminished proportion of development potential, with Cadillac Fairview presumably free and clear of the costs of over-the-track bridging. A win-win…win,win, win for Cadillac Fairview and a lose, lose for affected adjacent owners and, more importantly, Vancouverites.
As for the proposed tower design, I would be inclined to be quite forgiving on any of the above if this design was indeed an elegant, beautifully proportioned piece of architecture that, by virtue of its sensitive interface with The Station, enhanced its immediate and broader Gastown heritage context as a contrasting, modern form. Unfortunately, despite some intriguing structural acrobatics at lower levels and best efforts at manipulating tower facade surface treatment, the proportions of this tower are unavoidably bulky and massive…its just plain fat!…a consequence of this site being simply too small and the height limit too low to accept 400,000 sq. ft. of density where 65,000 sq. ft. +/- was intended. The interface with The Station, again, despite best design efforts, is simply too crowded and over-bearing, another consequence of the site being too small to sensitively handle this scale of building.
My only purpose and hope in voicing these concerns is to notice that there is not, at this moment, such a compelling urgency requiring fast-tracking of development approval on this small site, particularly when it appears that this could result in a serious mistake. A major re-think is needed.
Your respectfully,
Ralph Segal
Has anyone else noticed that the haters are all old white boomer men?
I`m looking for a job right now – about to graduate from college. In a bit of debt.
Frankly, I’d rather there be office towers (filled with jobs) than views from an architecturally significant parking lot.
I think this whole thing is a travesty. A typical, but perverse redistribution of welfare from working people to vocal aesthetes.
I’ll probably leave beautiful Vancouver, because there aren’t many jobs here. This ostensibly prudent consensus for placing overbearing restrictions on economic growth is partly why.
If we can’t build an urban high-rise economy, just build kinder morgan then. Cheers to the hewers and the drawers – I should have done a trade.
Your comment reminds me of the L.A. depicted in Bladerunner.
Sorry to disappoint, but I don’t fit your hypothesis (bias?).
No I hadn’t noticed. Are all the fanboys of the proposal recently graduated hipsters?
From observation over a number of years: wealthy, older property owners are by far the most vocal opponents of change in Vancouver. They have enough free time to engage in political lobbying, and they have zero incentive to help Vancouver accommodate more housing or jobs. They already have a house and they don’t need to work much, so what do they care?
I think it’s more of a historical accident than anything that they’re mostly white.
Let me explain that to you: property owners have more invested in a community and pay more taxes to the city than those who rent. It has nothing to do with age.
Self appointed design police would deny to others the very design freedom that they themselves cherish. Great cultural works are not created by committee they are achieved through the courage of individuals who dare to venture where lesser men have feared to tread.
I don’t understand this argument. Why is it “freedom loving” to like one particular design, and “freedom denying” to dislike it?
Why do you say that anyone who doesn’t like the design is denying freedom?
Furthermore, who do you expect will take you seriously with such an argument?
…design freedom…
That says nothing about the quality of the design or it’s contribution to the common good.
Ugh. Racism and ageism all at once. A new low for this otherwise accessible blog. Take it elsewhere, fella.
The criticism from Ralph Segal clearly points out the lack of need in the proposal to build over the railway tracks. This gives the developer, as mentioned, height and density benefits that maximize financial leverage of the site, yet leaves the air space over the tracks unbuilt. Furthermore, this causes a reduction in value, as well as obligations of adjacent property holders.
This is much more than a commentary on the aesthetic design. This important part of his commentary could have been written by a young person from Timbukthree that had taken the long look and considered the ramifications of the proposed building to the neighbouring holdings.
Whether or not this building is suited to the site from an aesthetic perspective is perhaps less important then.
Ralph Segal’s letter contains a factual and policy-based assessment, which stands out amongst all the like/don’t like conversation going on. There is simply too much development density being forced onto this site, which has helped create this out-of- scale thing now being proposed. The hub plan should have more respect than it apparently does, which is a real shame.
Too much development density? I find that hard to believe in a location that’s just steps from two rapid transit lines, the West Coast Express, the SeaBus, and countless bus routes. I can’t think of any location that’s more appropriate for a huge amount of density than this.
And aesthetically I think it looks fine, by the way.
Reilly – as Ralph’s letter notes, most of the assigned density in that hub precinct is to be assigned to new sites over the tracks. Without that incentive, there is reduced reason to build the long-awaited deck and streets in that air space.
So, choices are either to cram it in in a very small site (once the new road space is deducted) or to reduce the footprint and corresponding density to help the approved PLAN for the area unfold. I prefer the latter direction.
BTW, the overall density would remain the same either way.
Since George asked, here’s what this old white male boomer envisions for this small, highly constrained site in order that not only Cadillac Fairview wins, but adjacent owners/stakeholders and all Vancouverites who care about their city also win.
Rather than the proposed standard office development programme (suited to a well sized downtown site) of typical 18,000 sq. ft. floor plates, I suggest a “boutique” office programme for this unique site with floor plates of 8,000-9,000 sq. ft. This would transform the massing of this 26-storey tower from bulky and “just plain fat” to (in the hands of acclaimed architects Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill) an “elegant, beautifully proportioned piece of architecture”. This much slimmer tower footprint could then be positioned substantially at the wider northerly portion of the site, leaving the sunny Cordova-fronting portion as public plaza. The lower 3-4 storeys (lobby, etc. levels) would be pulled in and transparent similar to proposed to provide pedestrians with generous North Shore mountain views as well as freeing up more of the heritage east facade of The Station.
The tower’s upper floors could cantilever out (to the east) over a portion of the necessary future Cordova Connector (north-south street) by agreement with City Engineering, thereby expanding, modestly, the most valuable view-oriented office floors.This arrangement would yield in the order of 200,000 – 220,000 sq. ft. of office floor area (triple the 65,000 sq. ft. cited in the Council- approved Central Waterfront Hub Framework) rather than the proposed 400,000+ sq. ft.
Can’t do it? Not profitable enough? Hmmm….. Oxford Properties has done precisely this in their just completed 1021 W. Hastings small floor plate office tower (Kohn Pederson Fox Architects) immediately west of the Marine Building, the design of which has been lauded by experts and lay people alike for its sensitive response to Vancouver’s most treasured heritage building.
So, rather than denying design freedom to Cadillac Fairview and its architects, I am presenting a challenge to them. Using their best ingenuity and skill, design a thoroughly modern building that, while perhaps not quite as profitable as the developer would prefer, will be seen to enhance rather than detract from this precinct by improving and adding to the Public Realm and responding creatively rather than clumsily to its heritage context.
Apparently, the cantilevers at the Telus Garden project (over Richards St. and Seymour St.) instead of being precedents, have left a bad taste in City Planners’ mouths and they won’t consider another example, even if that would be a solution here, to keep the building massing away from the CP Station.
Another option would be to cantilever part of it to the north over the Kerfoot Whitecaps lands and future transit RoW. There is a precedent here as well – looking at the Marine Gateway building cantilevering over the Marine Drive Station bus loop.
The only clumsiness I can detect is the effort to revise this proposal by any means including abandonment of the planning framework that was so desperately relied upon in your last epistle. This retreat only goes to show that it is the zoning that rules the development of this site and to which the application is in full compliance.
Your obsessive distaste with the ratio of height to width of the proposed tower can not be solved by clawing back half of the development area. Not your property. I had hoped that you might have tried to solve your conundrum with the obvious suggestion of maintaining the floor area but increasing the height to say sixty stories in order to generate the appearance of a slender form!
After all we should remember that we are in the middle of a public debate over funding transit projects. If ever there was a site well served by transit (Sea Bus, Commuter Rail, the Expo Line, the Millennium Line, and trolley lines) it is this site, the perfect transit oriented high density development site in the whole of the City, which of course ought to be marked by a “signature” building as a reference landmark in the cityscape.
The relaxation of view cones that a higher building would require might be offered in exchange for a grand central station concourse which is highly desirable as shown in the HUB framework. Win, win all around. But I am OK with what’s on the table already.
Great post, I agree on all counts.
The block is already occuppied by a signature building, the venerable old CPR Station. A compromise is on the table: a density transfer of roughly the top 60% of the massively over-scaled and absurdly contorted-to-fit proposal to another downtown site, leaving the same overall density, and the oportunity to shine with an elegant, appropriately-scaled sleek Moderist structure respectfully fitted between two heritage gems.
Seems to be a trend.
http://www.governing.com/topics/urban/in-effort-to-gain-notice-cities-build-increasingly-strange-looking-building.html
Is it speculation that this proposal uses density from above the tracks or has that been confirmed?
This project is owned by Cadillac Fairview.
I thought the air rights over the railway tracks was owned by Greg Kerfoot (being the location of the proposed Whitecaps Stadium a number of years ago).
I also haven’t seen an application for the transfer of density between the parcels, as it’s been said in the media that no rezoning is required.
You can see from the map here, that the Whitecaps 2006 proposal and the Cadillac Fairview proposal are adjacent (not overlapping) sites:
http://former.vancouver.ca/commsvcs/currentplanning/whitecaps/stadium.htm
I also agree that it is the preservation of the view cone f(from QE Park and from City Hall) that is causing this building to be short and squat.
I found a better map showing the adjacent ownerships of the waterfront hub lands.
As of 2009 – it is/was clear that the areas over the railway tracks are Whitecaps lands, while Cadillac Fairview owned the CP Station and Granville Square.
Absent a transfer of density and/or a change in property ownership, I don’t think that Cadillac Fairview would be using air rights intended for over the railway tracks.
http://former.vancouver.ca/commsvcs/currentplanning/whitecaps/stadium.htm
Here’s the better map:
http://former.vancouver.ca/commsvcs/currentplanning/whitecaps/pdf/2009/Board1_Background.pdf
Well at least the earlier gender, race and age related post got people talking. Remind me who killed the bike path in Kits beach?
I sense a similar outcome on this site to what happened to the “new” granville mall – $20million once in a 3 generation chance for an upgrade, and instead something mediocre and forgetable. All those unncessary white vertical lights harkening back to the “great white way” or whatever, that drown out/take away from all the somewhat interesting lighting that private property owers were required to install on their buildings.
Here is the first building I’ve seen in a long time that actually makes a statement. And yes the fact that it is crowding the heritage building next door is part of the statement. Personally I like it, and hope we could have more of this. It’s certainly better than the Montreal-style mega podium buildings (Shaw, Fairmount) to the west, which do nothing for engaging delight or curiousity.
Poking heritage, scale, context and just about every relevant design consideration in the eye does make a statement. It’s about the act of poking, not about the design.
This application goes to the City’s Urban Design Panel today. Here is the letter that I submitted to the City of Vancouver on this matter:
Re: 555 Cordova Street Development Permit Application
I am writing to register my concerns with respect to the above noted Development Permit Application (DPA). Kindly enter this letter into the public record for the Development Permit Board’s consideration. I will be out of town for the scheduled DPB date, so will be unable to attend in person.
My concerns are as follows:
This site’s location is unique for several reasons. It is located between two significant heritage buildings: the former CPR Railway Station and The Landing. It stands at the gateway to the nationally registered Gastown Historic District. And it provides downtown Vancouver with one of the very few remaining panoramic views of Burrard Inlet and the North Shore, albeit currently enjoyed primarily by parked vehicles. Given this highly charged context, a business-as-usual DPA process is not appropriate, and this proposal should be given far more scrutiny than usual.
1. The site plan showing the extent of the proposed building indicates that it will take up almost the entire site, with a narrow separation distance between it and The Landing, once it reaches its full floor plate extent. The existing panoramic view will be obliterated. This would be a major public amenity loss.
2. The design disregards the surrounding heritage context entirely. The proposed building will be pushed up against and in fact extend out over the top of the former CPR Railway Station, one of the most significant historic buildings in Vancouver. This will diminish the latter building’s significance and is profoundly disrespectful of Vancouver’s built heritage. Notwithstanding what the applicant or their architects may claim, no reasonable person will consider this design to be a sensitive response to this highly charged heritage context.
3. The building is proposed to be serviced and loaded entirely from the existing lane at the lower grade level between the existing buildings along Water Street and the railway yard. This lane is narrow and dead ends at the subject site. All traffic has to either turn around at the end of the lane (assuming there will be space for this under the new building), or else back out, as vehicles do now. The lane is often congested with delivery vehicles, and it is very difficult to imagine how this will work in future with the new building demands. There will also be significant traffic impacts on Water Street, which forms the heart of the Gastown Historic District and is about to be renewed as the area’s primary public space.
4. The proposed building is totally out of scale and incompatible with the surrounding heritage buildings, and is completely inappropriate as a ‘Gateway’ project to the Gastown National Historic District which begins right here.
5. While I recognize that this property is in private ownership, this key site should really be in the public domain. I have long believed that it should be transformed into a public square, with active edges on both sides (The Station Building and The Landing) spilling into the square with restaurant and café seating overlooking the waterfront, etc. If this project is approved, this unique opportunity will be lost to Vancouver forever. The City should seek to make a deal with the landowner to purchase or otherwise secure the site for the public good. Such a deal could involve a density transfer to another, less freighted, site, to compensate the landowner.
While I recognize that a public information meeting is not required for a development permit application, I would strongly encourage the City to host such a public meeting prior to the DPB making its decision, given the significance of this proposal, and the likely levels of interest and concern expressed by not just those of us in the planning and design professions but also by average Vancouverites.
I respectfully submit these observations as a professional urban planner, past Chair of the Vancouver City Planning Commission, and past member of the Urban Design Advisory Panel, for the DPB’s consideration.
Yours truly,
Lance Berelowitz AA DIPL MCIP RPP
A plan such as the Hub inspired by the classical period of history is very difficult to implement in the modern world and especially so when there are no patrons in sight or a treasury to loot.
A phased plan is possible to implement and would consist of an extension eastward of Canada Place at a gradual downward slope to the waterfront road below thus providing street frontage and access for new development along both sides of its length.
There is no need to construct a grand auto interface with this transit node, wrong message. No need for the extension of Granville Street and the excessive demolition of public space that results.
There is no need for other streets or a road allowances such as the one along the eastern edge of Cadillac Fairview property. The HUB planning framework would establish a building line that constrains the available surface area for future development on the east side of the Station Building.
The Station House allowable building envelope is further constrained by historical artefacts and by height limits. There is urban design rationale that supports relaxation of the view cones and elimination of the imagined right of ways in order to create a truly transit oriented office development that can be engaging at a scale of significance with-in the landscape of mountains, sea and historical building fabric.
J.O., there is much logic in your commentary. However, because this is such an important precinct we need to look a couple of generations beyond today’s context.
Our streets are indeed engineered for cars, but let’s not throw out their alternate importance as the full frontal face of buildings (their literal address) and as open space conduits for people whether delivered on transit or on their own feet. While it’s true Granville Square provides a stunning view of the working waterfront and the mountains, there are now other platforms in the vicinity (Canada Place perimeter walk, Jack Poole Plaza, Harbour Green Park seawall). The only redeeming feature of Granville Square is the view. It is otherwise a cold, barren and featureless (save for some token planters and a small fountain) skinny acre perched on top of a parkade with a stunningly ugly gaping maw of an entry facing Granville x Cordova. The extension of Granville a block north and Canada Place Way a block east offers a pedestrian route with much potential with generous 6 m sidewalks , and would help restore the street-level west entrance to Waterfront Station that existed when I first saw it as a kid in 1961 when taking the CPR passenger train to the Prairies. Back then they had Sterling silver cutlery and monogramed china in the dining cars.
I would debate swinging a car and even a bus route through the current parking lot site where this size 48 tower is going through conniption fits trying to squeeze itself into a size 8 shoe and feel there is much merit in the idea of extending a generous platform far out over the tracks, designing it as a richly detailed and meaningful pedestrian plaza with fulfilling programmed spaces and niches all the way to Cordova, and wrapping it if possible at the same elevation to the extended Granville Street on the waterfront side of the station.
You allude to a funding vacuum. If you care to look it up you may find that Canada is practically the only industrialized nation that does not provide much federal funding for public transit save for spot increments of singular projects. However, there is a concurrent national subsidy of $29 billion a year (almost $300 billion a decade) of the private car nation-wide from all sources. That is clearly not sustainable for much longer. I suggest someone should start looking for ways to incrementally divert 10%-15% (I would prefer more, but this level is a realistic start) of that funding at predictable annual levels toward transit as part of a national transit infrastructure project.
This is probably the best of a few ways to be able to address moving people instead of cars across the Salish Sea and to plan for modern rail-based intercity travel across the country that is divorced from the unstable prices and external problems created by fossil fuels. The transit hub of tomorrow should not be weakened with today’s developments that nibble away at its potential.
What I have suggested as a development phasing strategy fits the reality of land ownership and the movement of pedestrians on the transit network as it currently exists. Improvements to the bus interface with other transit modes are not precluded by what I have outlined nor do they require a right of way east of the Station House.
Further more the extension of Canada Way provides access to a foreshore site for the Whitecaps Stadium, a development which could contribute much to transit architecture in the area.
I have always thought a floating stadium would be just the right piece of kit for the Whitecaps. It could be constructed in a South Korean shipyard and towed to Burrard Inlet, where it could be moored next to the Sea Bus terminal. It would be the talk of the soccer world, and a tourist attraction all of our own making.
We need inspiring proposals in this area of the city, not classical master plans which cannot be implemented. There is no future for a master plan that cannot be built.