October 8: Ian Gillespie’s proposed redevelopment of the Safeway east of the Commercial-Broadway SkyTrain station, which has been identified as a key site in the Grandview-Woodland community plan.
More information on this is in the Grandview-Woodland Community Plan, and in this Vancouver Sun article by Brian Morton.
Here are some hints as to what to expect: the redeveloped old Safeway site at Granville and 70th in Vancouver. Another is underway (early stages) at the Davie / Cardero Safeway in Vancouver’s West End.
Of all the locations in the City that have amazing potential–this is on top of the list. I just hope the architecture isn’t more boring grey/glass.
This is probably where there will be potentially painful trade-offs with the community. The GWCP calls for “10+” storeys on the Safeway site, but also a public plaza. One can assume that after a full year of citizen workshops the community will have an idea of where the buildings should top out beyond 10 floors. But the developer may have a desire to push the envelope to well over 20 storeys considering the requirement for an open plaza in a limited area (presumably at street level), and the undeniable power of a rapid transit hub station to stimulate development. What will the exchange in community benefits for additional height look like?
When the city previously placed a plan before the neighbourhood there was an explosion over the 34-storey tower (or was it 36?) indicated on the Safeway site that was beyond anything the community saw before. Vision almost lost the subsequent election. The best things that came out of that incident was binning the plan, starting the Citizen’s Assembly consultation process, and casting out the demons, so to speak, from within the city administration after several year’s attrition of good souls.
It will be interesting to see where this second kick of the can ends up.
The GWAP finally offers an opportunity to do something very good here to optimize the potential of this very rare and under utilized site, especially since there will be no displacement. I trust the development program will call for relocating and retaining the supermarket, adding shops and services, a range of new housing without car dependency and, hopefully, more employment to add vitality during working hours. Animating and linking to the neglected and tawdry space under the existing platform should be a primary goal. This space could provide for local artisans and food trucks, etc.
My main concern with the area plan’s ideas is that this is the place for a main public plaza. IMO, the preferred place for that initiative is spanning the Grandview Cut adjacent to the east side of the Commercial Drive bridge. This location could then be strengthened by refreshing or even redeveloping the 2-storey commercial building there, and providing a new entrance to the station via the new plaza, directly from Commercial Drive.
I hope the community shows up and provides creative and optimistic input at this early in the process.
Spanning the Cut……
It has been discussed before recently here on PT. This is an old idea that goes back to a plan circa 1991 developed by my old firm, Waisman Dewar Grout Carter. Back then there was no Millennium Line or Commercial Station. The development, buildings and all, would have spanned about 75 metres of the Cut east of Commercial Drive.
Our idea was to follow the SkyTrain guideway alignment above with a curved outdoor plaza at grade separating two curved buildings from Broadway to the intersection of Grandview x Commercial, with shops lining the plaza. That was a fun project in part because we proposed a long narrow fountain in the centre with digitized water jets timed to the trains, and a cool coloured lighting system.
What killed it was the Engineering Dept’s comments that decking over the Cut would be inappropriate because they wanted to preserve the Cut for a truck freeway that would in part be a route for dangerous materials.
Here we are a quarter of a century later, no freeway (thank the gods). And no deck.
Should this idea gain momentum again, I’ll certainly get behind it. Decking over the Cut in the quadrant between Commercial, Grandview, Victoria and Broadway would be very expensive. But what you’ll gain is ~7,450 m2 of public open space after deducting 1,800 m2 for the section of protruding Commercial Station roof and possible new station entries.
Who in GW would object to a new 1.8+ acre park / plaza / public amenity space? The space could be richly programmed for all kinds of community events and even allotment gardens. It would arguably offer a great sense of public safety being out of road traffic.
But you’d still be under a SkyTrain guideway or surrounded by busy traffic. Compare it to human places in Europe. There are better places for people.
You’re right, except for the longest (220 m) edge paralleling much quieter Grandview, and the sound shadows offered by the existing buildings on Broadway x Commercial. The sound studies I’m familiar with qualified noise increase by the square, and decrease by the square root. In other words, moving from 15 m to 30 m from Broadway will decrease the sound by a lot more than half.
The deck idea would essentially create new usable “land” where none exists today without acquiring private property. Further, European cities had a millennium to develop public squares before cars arrived on the scene. We should learn to accept whatever we can get to improve the quality of life in our cities, even with our high level of car dependency.
Well I spent a couple of pints in pub under New Westminster Skytrain Station and found it next to intolerable. SkyTrain car be reasonably quite when the tracks are freshly ground, but that’s usually not the case.
I agree that being directly under a rapid transit line can be annoying, so I am curious how the folks working in the buildings adjacent to Broadway Station cope. Maybe putting the tracks on neoprene pads to separate them from the concrete guideway (which resonates with the sound) would be effective.
This won’t matter if you’re enjoying a brew in a new pub built in the new plaza over 100m from the trains.