As attractive metro downtowns have resortified and the economy slowed, office building was sluggish in many places. But apparently now starting to pick up there … and here.
I note that a new office building — on the site of the University Club, which will have its facade preserved — is going to Development Permit Board today, the first one actually at DP board in a while.
Here’s the description from the agenda.
To construct a 35 storey mixed use office/retail tower on the existing University Club (formerly ‘Quadra Club’) site at 1021 West Hastings Street, this site to be consolidated with the westerly existing Guinness Tower. The ‘University Club’ facade to be retained with retail spaces constructed on the ground floor. New construction will integrate the parking and services of the existing Guinness parking with the structures below grade.
24 responses so far ↓
1 Bill Lee // Apr 4, 2011 at 11:53 am
I wonder if highrises are rising outside of City of Los Angeles?
Just as Surrey, Burnaby, Richmond have newer highrises than Vancouver. Though here we are talking about office towers only?
Facadism. The north side of Hastings at that point has been decimated by shadows, lack of retail at the sidewalk level and so on.
Saving the facade would put retail, often dependent on window displays (rather than barber poles, T-signs, images of cigarettes, etc.) for glyphic attracetion, above the street level. the ex-University Club (merged with Vancouver club in 1987?) . “University Club – 1929
1021 West Hastings Street, Vancouver, BC.
“An engaging Spanish Colonial Revival essay, this building was designed by the same architects as the Vancouver Club with which the University Club has merged. Originally built for the Quadra Club, and for a time the headquarters of the local Royal Canadian Air Force Reserve, it was bought by the University Club in 1957.”
from : http://www.flickr.com/photos/bobkh/1376193766/
And the women formed the University Women’s Club which had no permanent structure.
I see that it is already on the Skyscraper page. http://skyscraperpage.com/cities/?buildingID=88854
[ and we note from the future, Fabula's tweets included <>
Perhaps doing the TimeWarp? ]
2 Joe Just Joe // Apr 4, 2011 at 12:03 pm
The first one since Nov/2010 when Bentall went to the DPB for it’s tower at 745 Thurlow… so it hasn’t been a long while. I think we might have to wait jsut a touch more before we see any groundbreaking though.
3 Frances Bula // Apr 4, 2011 at 12:06 pm
@Oh, I knew if I wrote that, it would turn out I had missed one of the pack that was ready to go.
4 ThinkOutsideABox // Apr 4, 2011 at 3:50 pm
Just wondering Frances, in making the point, why the comparison of Vancouver to LA?
Having lived in Los Angeles, “attractive metro downtowns” is not what normally comes to mind for downtown LA. Held up against Vancouver’s downtown, they couldn’t be farther apart; they are night and day.
As downtowns entertainment districts go, I’d sooner see similarities between Granville and Palm Springs’ strips, i.e. lots of drugs, booze, vomit and disorderly behavior.
Vancouver’s pedestrian/retail friendly streets, i.e. Robson, Denman, Davie are similar to LA county’s Larchmont strip, 3rd Sreet Promenade and the Grove, except in LA you have to drive to each of them to walk them.
5 Frances Bula // Apr 4, 2011 at 3:58 pm
@TOB. I wasn’t comparing Vancouver to LA except on the very narrow issue of building offices. Both cities struggle with trying to define their downtowns as vibrant central business districts, though in different ways. People constantly talk about the lack of head offices here; LA’s downtown has been diffused and, as a result, is somewhat incoherent.
6 ThinkOutsideABox // Apr 4, 2011 at 4:00 pm
Totally agree with all that Frances.
7 Frances Bula // Apr 4, 2011 at 4:02 pm
@TOB I’m watching Outfoxed as I write this, so it’s making me feel, strangely, like trying to get along with everyone.
8 ThinkOutsideABox // Apr 4, 2011 at 4:04 pm
I haven’t seen it yet, so let me catch up on the context – by the end of today.
9 Higgins // Apr 4, 2011 at 8:16 pm
Frances, you brought up the LA example, because… I could not think of a worse city to take advise from or follow. It may be good for filming fantasies but that’s a city gone to the coyotes all the way from Cahuenga Blvd. to Mulholland Dr. Action! Lovely gated communities, or more like locked up communities. What’s not to like?
10 Gentle Bossa Nova // Apr 4, 2011 at 11:51 pm
Ceasar Pelli designed Pacific Centre here, and the “Blue Whale” convention center in L. A. (with red and green pavilions as well). Bunker Hill has pieces designed by Arthur Erickson. So, the comparison is not bad until you realize that L.A. is about 5x larger than Vancouver and we are not set to reach that level any time soon.
11 gmgw // Apr 5, 2011 at 12:06 am
@ThinkOutsideaBox, #4:
If downtown Vancouver had a street half as vibrant as downtown LA’s Broadway, I might enjoy going downtown again. Mind you, when we were in the Grand Central Market (grandcentralsquare dot com) a few years ago, we went to get a smoothie from the stand by the rear entrance. I glanced up at what used to be Bunker Hill (hello, John Fante) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bunker_Hill_Downtown_Los_Angeles.jpg) and almost dropped my drink; the sight of all those glass and chrome towers seeming to lean threateningly over the remnants of the old downtown LA made me feel like I’d wandered into an outtake from War of the Worlds. I hope the Bradbury Building (one of the most extraordinary interior spaces on the planet: http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/Bradbury_Building.html) (click on those photos!!), at least, survives the coming onslaught for at least another century or so. The first time I entered the Bradbury Building I surprised myself by literally bursting into tears at its sheer beauty– and I didn’t do that when we visited Chartres. Go figure.
No matter how one feels about Los Angeles, it remains home to some of the finest modern and modernist architecture– commercial, institutional and domestic– to be found anywhere.
gmgw
12 ThinkOutsideABox // Apr 5, 2011 at 10:12 am
How “vibrant” was LA’s Broadway in the evening?
13 gmgw // Apr 5, 2011 at 11:44 am
@TOAB:
Haven’t seen it at night. Probably less so, like most rough-around-the-edges inner-city streets. But let me ask you this: You would maybe prefer the sophisticated allure of the Granville strip on a Friday night?
gmgw
14 ThinkOutsideABox // Apr 5, 2011 at 12:25 pm
Over what? Dead and abandoned downtown LA at night?
I believe I already described my observations of Granville above.
15 Richard // Apr 5, 2011 at 1:44 pm
@ThinkOutsideABox
Many of the buildings in downtown LA are far more attractive than any in downtown Vancouver. Compared to the great pedestrian streets in practically every European city, Robson, Denman and Davie are really not that pedestrian or retail friendly for that matter. It is really time to get the traffic and parking off these streets to make room for the people that actually do the shopping.
Time to think outside the North American box.
16 Roger Kemble // Apr 5, 2011 at 3:15 pm
My first wife was Angelino. She had no love for the place and soon after we were married the family moved to Mill Valley, San Francisco. We moved to Victoria.
I haven’t been there for years but my recollection of Broadway was wall-to-wall people with a building mix of art-deco-latino-tacky and Louis Sullivan type Chicago blocks with their huge swivel windows.
When Vancouver was building the magnificent Dominion Building, Marine building and Sun Tower LA was on an art-deco binge, best seen back of Sunset Boulevard, and Grauman’s Chinese Theatre.
The Green Bros were beyond style: sublime!
Way off in the hills FLW was building La Minatura, in Pasadina, for Madame Millard and Hollyhock house, Hollywood, for Madame Barnsdall.
We had, here, the dramatic columnated Pantages Theatre until Army Navy demolished it, some time in the early sixties, to make way for parking.
LA architecture has been down hill ever since Gehry and Disney got together.
I’m told the house on the corner of King Ed. and Marguerite is an FLW. I don’t believe ‘em!
17 Bill Lee // Apr 5, 2011 at 3:40 pm
Richard Campbell, drumbeater for Vancouver Cycling Coalition, comment 15 above, should watch
http://preview.tinyurl.com/3z7qffe
“Seattle movie-maker, William Harbeck, mounted a camera on the front of a B.C. Electric Railway tram and filmed the journey along Granville and Hastings, along Westminster Avenue (now Main Street), Carrall, Powell, Cordova, Cambie, Robson and Davie . . . ”
from the City of Vancouver Cultural Services website of the early streets of Vancouver which is what Vision wants to return is to in an Callenbach Ecotopian paradise.
Cars? Wagons? Trams? The streets
were designed for wagons and cars designed to the width of wagons.
If there were more people then, there would be more horses, wagons and so on along West End streets.
So cars replaced wagons, bicycles intermingled and everyone got along.
We shall see when the Velo-city golden bicycle comes to Vancouver from Seville next year.
“Manfred Neun officially closed the 17th Velo-city conference in Seville as he symbolically passed the Velo-city bike to the representatives of the next hosting city, Mike Anderson and Bob Paddon. Velo-city 2012 takes place June 26-29 in Vancouver, Canada. Addressing Hans-Juergen Becker, Director of Velo-city 2012 Neun concluded with the words: “Vancouver is a melting pot of different cultures. So it is the perfect place to share cycling know-how with the world. Good luck to you in Vancouver and may Velo-city continue to grow!”
http://www.bike-eu.com/news/4879/velo-city-2011-concludes-with-signing-of-seville-charter.html
18 Roger Kemble // Apr 5, 2011 at 4:06 pm
PS . . .
Before the Los Angeles Railway’s streetcars began the relentless 1920′s push into sprawl some pretty interesting atrium housing, like our very discreet Tatlow Park housing, on Point Grey Road, were all over LA.
Was LA modeling Tatlow Vancouver? Or the other way ’round!
The movie Chinatown, about the early water wars, incidentally showed some.
Pity Vancouver doesn’t have more.
19 ThinkOutsideABox // Apr 5, 2011 at 4:15 pm
I do love FLW designed structures. I visited a music producer who was living in a FLW designed house and was impressed by what detail received attention.
I also love John Lautner’s eccentricity and wonder if we will ever see that style come upon us again.
Spanish colonial I admire as well which LA has an abundance of. We have one such building in the West End, Maxine’s which Gregory Henriquez and the Millennium bros were going to gut to put up yet another glass and concrete tower design from the Yaletown design reject pile.
I just got in from picking something up at the downtown Sears and contrary to what Richard suggests above, I biked past what must have been hundreds of pedestrians along Robson and then down Granville, then back along Davie for a bite and up Denman. People were shopping, buying street food, smiling, chit-chatting. None appeared threatened or fearful in their pedestrian-ness. In fact that’s what struck me on my arrival in Vancouver for the first time from Los Angeles, was the walkable streets and density with people walking streets in downtown Vancouver as compared to say the Sunset strip, Hollywood Blvd, Wilshire or Fairfax where people are walking – but not too far from where they parked.
Time to think outside the North American box.
And yet the 3rd Street Promenade is in Santa Monica.
20 The Fourth Horseman // Apr 5, 2011 at 5:29 pm
@Roger #16
That home is “in the style of” FLW, not the real thing.
Down in Phoenix and will go see FLW’s place here tomorrow. Can’t wait!
I will tell you that “downtown Phoenix” is full of stadia and government buildings—come up with your own punchlines.
Quite a hot mess…
21 gmgw // Apr 5, 2011 at 7:57 pm
For any architecture/preservationist buffs heading to LA, I heartily recommend getting in touch prior to departure with the LA Conservancy (http://www.laconservancy.org/) and signing up for one of their walking tours (see internal link), several of which explore various aspects and architectural landmarks (old and new) of downtown LA (the tours often sell out early– be warned). I first did their tour of the Broadway district and its historic movie theatres 20 years ago and it was an amazing experience– I’m amazed so many of them still exist, even if converted to new uses.
The Conservancy does important work in agitating for the recognition and preservation of architecturally significant (and often under-valued) buildings and neighbourhooods. And smug though you LA-haters will always be, there is no organization in Vancouver with a comparable public profile or equivalent clout– more’s the pity.
gmgw
22 Bill McCreery // Apr 5, 2011 at 11:21 pm
I admire all of the knowledge, detailed and broad brush, from the above commenters. It’s also very instructive to see 2 places many know to some degree or another through different eyes.
I’m reminded of the observation from years ago when on the Design Panel in the early 70s that Vancouver buildings we were reviewing such as Pacific Centre and Vancouver Centre, which replaced the venerable Birks Building, were branch plant architecture done by branch plant architects. Toronto’s TD building was a Mies, Vancouver got a cheaped out Pelli and a gaudy Web Zarafa. The tiny strip Eatons display windows were, believe it or not a compromise. We, on the DP, wanted real Canadian department store windows. Instead Vancouver got the pathetic uninspired and less than useful what’s there slots. You’ll note however, the DP did insist in Pac Centre 2 that there be proper street windows. We were more successful that time.
Have we progressed? We’ve gotten over needing to hire an expert with a brief case architect from more than 3 hours away, so we’ve got a little Arthur downtown, and at least some downtown other interesting buildings. The average building is good, and a few very good, but very little is what one would call exceptional. But, we have made the urban design parts work pretty well, which is what Vancouver has become known for.
Unfortunately, due to this Vision Council and their Director of Plannings’ conviction that the only thing better than more density is more density higher, the City will soon be losing many of the fine urban design achievements we have managed. In architecture, and also in the urban design context, inserting one mistake into a milieu not only is is it’s own negative, but it destroys its neighbours as well. Ray Spaxman’s mantra was “be a good neighbour”. It appears our current planners would rather we try to be what we’re not, Manhattan as one told me last fall.
There are many other layers to a discussion about office buildings in CBDs, but enough already.
23 Roger Kemble // Apr 6, 2011 at 8:58 am
Bill @ #21
Vancouver got a cheaped out (Caesar) Pelli . . .
Don’t talk to me about Caesar phuccin’ Pelli . . . !
Remember, you were there, Rand Iredale chaired the AIBC’s UD panel! I was a member too: 1968+/-
We invited Pelli to tell us about his Eaton’s thingie, or to be more precise, to explain, The tiny strip Eatons display windows . . .
His response . . . oh la dee da . . . “retail continuity is not appropriate on that part of Granville.
And on boy did he throw that very vital part of the street under the bus. It still hasn’t recovered.
Pelli is just another one of those untalented, hifalutin, corporate architects in the business of take the money and run.
And we have too many of ‘em here . . .
24 Gentle Bossa Nova // Apr 8, 2011 at 12:27 am
I’m dreaming of a Blue Whale, with a red and green buildings nearby (Cesar Pelli, Design Center, L.A.).
The younger set refers to the Eatons/Sears building as “the urinal”—because of the white tile and the rounded edges.
Oh, so much discontent (Roger & Bill) about a fairly decent set of buildings. Back to L.A. …
I Love Randy Newman for his “I Love L.A.” ditty that must have been a rip off the NYC “I [red heart] NY”.
What can you say about a place that has a grid of Freeways? And, a Chinatown…
Well, you can say that Erickson’s Bunker Hill is a disaster. That the Spanish Colonial grid of the downtown streets with Ghery’s Disney Auditorium is as bad as Vancouver’s Georgia Street (from Denman all the way down to the viaduct). Hold our collective breath for the coming of the new art gallery…
I Love Venice Beach. I stay in Chinatown. I Love to geek on Rodeo Drive. LACMA is a first rate museum. I’m building up my clippings for their version of the interurban and the neighbourhoods that grew up around it.
But, I still don’t get L.A.
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