After years of being vacant, a DTES property (95 W Hastings at Abbot) is to become a 10-storey 132-unit market rental building, with retail, built by the Holborn Group. Just as soon, that is, as they get their Trump Tower into operation and their Little Mountain 17-building, 15-acre 8-year project past planning stage. It will be another change in an area that has been moving away from dereliction for years.
The design is by architect Gair Williamson.
Rental units (132) consist of 83 studios, 3-1 BR, 46-2 BR. Parking for 74 vehicles and 167 bicycles. Three commercial / retail units at street level. Floor plan detail HERE. None of the units is large.
Thanks to Frances Bula in the Globe and Mail for the tip.
While I am happy to see something more in keeping with the traditional scale of Hastings Street (than a 150′ building would be), it’s too bad that the building fills the entire site to all property lines. A couple of feet setback for additional pedestrian space on both streets would help this very busy location a lot. Perhaps on the ground floor only, as at the recently built SFU mixed use building at W. Hastings and Hamilton? I don’t think the modest loss of density would matter much, this looks like about 10FSR of so anyway.
Yes, note the only setbacks are reserved for the penthouse floors. Welcome to the future.
The plans show the Hastings Street sidewalk at 14′ 1″, and Abbott Street at 10′ 7″. Apart from being quaintly Imperial, they don’t seem particularly mean. With heritage buildings to the east on the same block having a similar sidewalk width (which doesn’t seem inadequate), reflecting the street dimensions seems OK. The density of the building is quite a bit less than 10 – it’s 7.6 FSR.
You may know that the COV tries to have at least a 12′ sidewalk wherever possible. That is possible on Abbott here.
Presumably if they feel strongly that an extra 17″ makes a difference here, they’ll negotiate that change – especially as this a rezoning. It won’t alter the width on the block as a whole, as there’s an SRO to the north across the lane with a narrower sidewalk. The West Hastings sidewalk seems to be the more important one in this location.
True, that.
Hi – John or Andy. I agree about Hastings, but why shoot so low? I’d be happy with just a couple of extra feet on most busy city sidewalks, like the 2′ setback the COV requires in many C-zones to allow for projections, bay windows, cornices, extra pedestrian space, etc. In this location it may only be needed on the first floor or two. A sunny southern exposure might even allow for sidewalk seating, which Hastings Street could really use. Maybe 4-5′ would be better here!
Here’s a list of things that impede whatever width our sidewalks happen to be: street signs and traffic signal poles, light poles, power poles, parking meters, fire hydrants, bike racks, trees, planters, benches, electrical boxes, newspaper boxes, mail boxes, food trucks, sandwich boards…
Widening sidewalks by forcing new buildings to be set back further is a century long project.
Widening sidewalks by removing street parking and/or travel lanes could be done within years.
It’s long past time to start doing this on many roads in our core. You’d be surprised, once you start looking, just how under-used many downtown roadways are. Seymour north of Georgia is nearly empty most of the day. Burrard north of Dunsmuir need only be one lane each way and there are no storefronts – so rid the street of parking and use those four lanes for wider sidewalks and protected bike lanes.