Frances Bula header image 2

Granville businesses want more street closures

February 24th, 2010 · 5 Comments

I had such great response to my previous post (thanks all urban planners out there, Lance, Michael and others) on the success of the Granville Mall during the Olympics that I wrote a story for the Globe too on it, which you can read here. As you’ll see in the story, downtown businesses, the mayor and police are all enchanted with how the street has become much more than just the under-40 club stroll the past week and a half.

I should also give credit to the team of Pechet + Robb, who also worked on the Granville Street redesign, which actually covered both the five blocks of the mall and another four blocks south of that. You can’t see a lot of their work on the street these days — the bendy metal street furniture and the basalt strips and glass embedded in the pavement — because of the crush of people on the street, but when everyone leaves Monday, take a look.

Categories: Uncategorized

  • Lewis N. Villegas

    Good piece Frances! I can’t believe you go the old classic: “the Eatons looks like urinal” line in. And cudos to Bill Pechet for more urban design work nicely carried out.

    Now, a Globe piece may be able to describe the forest, but it is not going to be able to get into the trees. Two sets of them: the old ones that were taken down, and the Lantern Trees that went up.

    Next to the Canada Line, those Lantern Trees are in my opinion the best piece of urbanism put up for the Games.

  • Chris

    If the Olympics convinces Vancouver it needs more pedestrian zones, it will be best legacy of the games.

  • MB

    This is going to be a very interesting public discussion.

    Granville has the potential to be one of the most powerful human-scaled chunks of urbanism anywhere.

    If the mall is made 100% pedestrian with the business community’s blessing, then why not consider extending it to Davie Street? The porn shops could easily be displaced by drawing patrons to better retail experiences, and orienting entertainment to a crowd that is quieter and more mature than that found in the current entertainment district. Liquor licences for smaller establishments with a focus on full meals with live performances could bring out the jazz supper clubs.

    With the Olympian crowds we have proven beyond any doubt that cars are not as necessary downtown as they used to be prior to the provision of major new transit assets over the last generation.

    I kinda like to see Granville as a very large outdoor art gallery and live performance venue. And why can’t they show movies on large outdoor screens, as Frances wrote about before?

    I’d also like to see the theatres and restaurants and all new buildings being encouraged to bring back the missing art of neon that Fred Herzog so elegantly captured in his photos of Granville from the 50s.

    Just a few ideas to get the creative juices flowing.

  • Lance Berelowitz

    For those who may be interested in another take on this street, see my story posted today on the Vancouver Observer, at:

    http://www.vancouverobserver.com/olympics/2010/02/24/taking-back-vancouvers-streets

  • Bill Lee

    Ok, we make Granville a pedestrian zone, and maybe we put one of those not-fully-enclosed glass arcade covers over it.
    And then we make each existing store stay the same forever! For it is the street face that attracts us.
    And are you ready for a succession of porn stores, or a series of H&M dress shops or other retail trades that close at 5 and have limited appeal.

    You just don’t want change. And how will you get to the stores? Oh, drive. but there is no parking because the other streets are rush-hours, and there is no off street parking.
    Buses are for little people, of course.

    There are other ways, if we consider the whole block and a redesign of back and front and sides and goods access points over th e whole Fußgängerr zone.

    I’ve seen good retrofits in some cities. Sijo in Kyoto was very nice. Sendai’s arcade not so much.