Scot Bathgate (‘The Daily Scot’) is guest editor this week.
.
Much has been made with good reason about the loss of heritage homes in Vancouver recently, but there is an equally upsetting trend happening throughout the city: the destruction of our historic fine-grained retail strips. These storefronts, located along the cities once prevalent streetcar routes, are systematically falling victim to developer lot assembly as the push for ever more density to house the masses reaches a fevered pace.
Here is an example along Dunbar Street on the west side of Vancouver.
.
Before: A functioning retail landscape providing affordable leases and supporting a wide variety of businesses along Dunbar Street.
.
After: Gone Forever. Instant destruction of 240 feet of functioning historic high street shops
.
I know some will argue I’m being too nostalgic and that I am neglecting function over form. How else are we going to house everyone if we don’t pick the low-hanging fruit, i.e. increased density along our arterials? It’s a tough one. Who wants the fight of densifying in the single-family neighbourhoods behind (Grandview-Woodland anyone?). It has been done before: a case in point a post from Gordon awhile back on Kerrisdale.
In the case of Dunbar Street, I believe there is another option to achieve density targets along the corridor. With roughly 10,000 linear feet of street frontage currently occupied by single-family homes, why not consider using these lots for residential infill intensification similar to the row homes along Oak Street and preserve the retail fabric as is?
.
.
The problem with replacing older storefronts with shiny new mixed-use developments goes beyond loss of human scale and history; new developments require amenities such as underground parking to meet code, which balloon retail leases. Essentially it’s gentrification in the neighbourhood retail context.
Here is the new Boheme development on East Hastings whose retail ground floor has sat empty for months aside from a Starbucks occupying the corner. I suspect it’s partly a consequence of location, or traffic volume, perhaps demographics in the area – but the end result appears to be unrealistic rents or contract terms keeping potential shop owners away.
.
Unleased shops sitting empty for months on the groundfloor of a new development
.
Infill on a used-car lot or a service station is a no-brainer, but we have a finite amount of historic retail strips left in this city, and when they’re gone they’re gone for good. Think about the enjoyable experience strolling Queen Street in Toronto or Portland’s Mississippi Avenue. Or any high street around the world. Ask yourself what made it special (eclectic shops? scale? opportuntities for lingering and loitering? architecture?) and ask yourself if we can preserve and fight for those same experiences here in Vancouver before it’s too late.
.
The eclectic shops along Main Street in Vancouver – hipster paradise. How long until these storefronts see the wrecking ball?
Preserving the retail fabric is what Vancouver did in the West End. Although pressures on the retail are relentless, it seems to work.
Most streets have a parallel laneway. Why not leave the arterial with the shops as is and build the density on the opposite side of the lane? This will preserve the character of the street and provide increased density as well. Also, there will be more light on the arterial and tunneling effect will be reduced.
These expressionless retail units that come with new developments create dead zones. The City knows this, but they just don’t give a crap.
East Hastings should be our Queen Street West. I hope that most of the smaller scale retail can be retained, but at the same time we need an influx of new residents in order to rejuvenate E. Hastings. Hmm.
If we have to redevelop, how hard would it be to leave a bit of a blank canvass for the business owner to work with? Let them put their own awning up and let them add their own creative touch to the facade.
We tend to focus on new vs old but many planning studies have shown that for “community commercial” the real difference is big frontage vs small frontage. The photo above with the unleased shops is a classic case: the building designer and developer focused on the large scale expression of the building and downplayed the small-scale expression of the shops. So there’s no rhythm and no variation to the parts — nothing that says “different things happen here.”
Often, as we all have seen, this is exacerbated by the way the new stores are inhabited — often all a single store — Shoppers Drug Mart comes to mind — so there’s only one door for several shopfronts and no life on the street.
One thing that has been done at the urban planning level is to require all commercial buildings in these kind of areas to be divided into specific frontages — 20 – 25 feet max — with an entry door for each one. It doesn’t prevent stores from expanding and combining, but it creates the infrastructure for variation over the long terms as tenants come and go.
Yes, this is happening a lot it seems. Every new development has a sleep country or some kind of drug store that kills the atmosphere, the uniqueness, etc. The architecture is bland, faceless and just giant windows. New development at 31st and Main and 23rd and Main exemplifies this. Both are brand new and both empty. I’m sure they’ll be filled by some generic, no-name thing that adds no value to the street. I was so disappointed in that development at King Ed and Main — a prominent corner and we get a sleep country, and dentist and a chain brand coffee shop. Ugh. The sleep country wraps around the entire corner!
Agree re: retail frontage flexibility. If there was a row of interesting small shops with wares and cafe’s on the sidewalk and some individual storefront treatments, the building above would disappear.
Don, Main x King Edward it may be a mattress store today, but that won’t be locked in concrete over the decades. I find the Caffe Artigiano animates the street. This building and the VFD Burn Unit building you refer to at 23rd are very new, and they do find tenants. Burritt Bros. at 20th is another homeware store that branched into Bean Around the World, but the site sold for a very high price, too high probably to finance development with a return without punching through the height restrictions.
The same is happening on Lonsdale in North Vancouver. One of the worst store fronts is Loblaws City Market/Joe Fresh on Lonsdale/17th. It is mostly a concrete wall to Lonsdale Ave. Even the bike racks aren’t usable because they were installed too close to the wall. At least the development didn’t remove small shops, but that is happening lower down on Lonsdale.
I appreciate the sentiment behind your post. However, may I suggest that you investigate the BC Assessment value of those single storey shops, and the taxes paid to the city. You might also check out other similar streetscapes. I think you will be shocked and understand why many small businesses are moving away, and sites are being redeveloped. I don’t condone this. On the contrary. But it is important to understand how property valuations and taxes play a role in redevelopment.
Agreed Michael. There is definitely a detailed planning/economic side to the story that I am hoping people like yourself highlight for us. Thanks for that. Just sad to see the speed at which its happening and hoped this post would get the discussion going if there are any other options. Question though, why is Queen Street in Toronto not seeing this same type of pressure? Surely they have comparable tax pressures? Cheers Scot
Vancouver’s commercial tax rate is 5x residential, Toronto is 3x. Here is a
Oops, can’t seem to edit the post. Here comes the correct link: https://mountainmath.ca/map/assessment?zoom=14&lat=49.258&lng=-123.1174&layer=10
These streetcar strips usually have existing Commercial/mixed use zoning at 2.5 FSR that dont require risky, costly and time-consuming rezoning processes. And public engagement.
One alternative approach that I advocated to the Commercial Drive BIA a few years ago was to restrict redevelopment within the existing small lot pattern, rather than encentivizing assemblies. The latter is often based on the parking requirements to achieve the full density.
This approach is also applicable to Chinatown, where we can now clearly see the impacts of large character-destroying land assemblies.
The whole reason for focussing multi-family / densification on arterial streets is based on the premise that the NIMBYs in the neighbourhood behind would resist densification back there.
If you look back in recent history – streets like Robson, Denman and Davie were zoned to restrict height and density – to preserve the ambience of the retail streetscape – but that was also based on the ability to densify in the blocks beyond/behind those streets (appropriate for a downtown setting).
Does such an option exist in the predominantly single family homed areas of Vancouver?
Would the residents allow densification off of arterial streets in order to preserve the ambience of their neighbourhood retail streets?
Why not along the stretches of Single Family homes as the atuhor mentions?
Further to Michael’s and Frank’s comments above, some of these arterials, like Main Street, were zoned for 2-4 storeys way back when streetcars ruled the day. The Grind building at King Edward, the residential building at 19th and the Public Lounge at 17th are over a century old. Single storey retail was not the only building type and zone historically. Many of us see the new 4-storey buildings developing on these arterials as a continuance of 19th Century urbanism, and even the newer retail spaces are rented out in time because of the moderately higher densities that support walk-in clientele.