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New Nordstrom store will be in dramatically re-designed building that will replace the old ‘Great White Urinal’ (Eaton’s/Sears) with glass and more

September 17th, 2012 · 35 Comments

This re-design has been anticipated by those in the know for a while, with an earlier rendering of the building floating around the internet.

And today, here it is.

The Twitter conversation about this is already suggesting there’s a sudden nostalgia for the old building, which surprises me. I had only ever heard bad things about the building.

But love or hate the new design, it will change the main intersection of Vancouver’s downtown, as noted in my Globe story today.

Vancouver’s ‘Great White Urinal’ is getting a Nordstrom makeover

By FRANCES BULA

White box at Granville and Georgia will be transformed by architect James Cheng to make a home for upscale American department store

It’s been called the ugliest building in Vancouver’s downtown, The Great White Urinal, early washroom architecture, and worse.

Now, the giant white box at Granville and Georgia is going to be transformed into a glassy new structure by one of the city’s leading architects, James Cheng. It was built for Eaton’s in 1973 as part of the new Pacific Centre mall, recently a Sears Centre, and soon to be home to the upscale American department store Nordstrom.

The design, to be made public Monday by Pacific Centre mall owner Cadillac Fairview, will show the reviled white tiles stripped off, replaced by glass.

Mr. Cheng, who designed some of Vancouver’s most notable highrises, the Shangri-La, the Shaw Tower and the Fairmont Pacific Rim, is known for his modernist style and use of striking materials.

The department-store box will be broken up into two sections that give it the appearance of two buildings, according to several commercial brokers who attended the briefing Cadillac Fairview held last month. A glass entrance facing Georgia and Granville will be much more prominent and dramatic than the current one. And two deep light wells will penetrate the top four floors, adding even more light to what will become offices above the department store. “They’re going to gut the whole building,” said Howard Malchy of DTZ Barnicke. It will take two years to redo the store after Sears moves out Oct. 31.

The redesign is bound to alter the feel of Vancouver’s downtown, say urban planners, architects and brokers.

“I think it’s going to be quite important if done well. It has been a bit of a plug in the city until now,” said Michael Heeney, an architect who works with Bing Thom, another of Vancouver’s legendary names. The two men have lobbied intensively the past few years for the city to do more to enhance Robson Square and the Vancouver Art Gallery next to the Sears Centre.

“One of the reasons Robson dissipates and loses its energy is because of that block.”

The mall, designed by architect Cesar Pelli, was built at a time when car culture dominated, said Mr. Heeney.

“They were trying to bring a suburban mall mentality to Vancouver. Eaton’s probably told them they didn’t want any windows.”

Because three of the walls present blank white walls to the street, it has made the building one that repels pedestrians, said Mr. Heeney, who has not seen the final design from Mr. Cheng for the new building.

“Howe Street [the street between the department store and Robson Square] has always been like a back alley in the city because of it. Robson Square is this jewel that has never had the activity around it to make it work. This will start to activate it.”

Certainly, the building will have far more activity in it than even in its heyday as the Eaton’s department store.

Local brokers say that they’ve been told by Cadillac Fairview that the basement level will become an extension of the mall, filled with the kinds of smaller stores that populate the northern end.

The Pacific Centre mall is currently the highest-volume mall in North America on a per-square-foot basis, said retail consultant Richard Wozny.

Nordstrom will occupy three floors. And office workers will fill the top four floors.

Those floors will be the largest office floors downtown Vancouver has ever seen. At 70,000 square feet apiece, they’re as large as some office buildings in suburban business parks.

Broker Maury Dubuque, with Colliers International, said he believes the offices above the department store will draw tenants with younger employees who will be attracted by the idea of working downtown, close to transit, stores and entertainment.

“It’s a great repurposing of a building, an ingenious plan,” said Mr. Dubuque.

 

Categories: Uncategorized

  • boohoo

    meh. More of the same.

  • IanS

    It’s difficult to tell from that single rendering, but it definitely looks like an improvement over what’s there now. IMO.

  • boohoo

    Yes, it’s better than what’s there now, but is that really saying anything?

    I mean it’s a glass box. Wow, how creative.

  • boohoo

    A couple other drawings here: http://www.openfile.ca/vancouver/blog/2012/design-plans-new-nordstromformer-sears-building-unveiled

  • mike0123

    The parking entrance at Howe and Robson still sucks. The renderings do their best to hide it.

    The Robson and Howe frontages will continue to suck as long as their primary role is as car access points. If they were serious about improving the adjacent public realm, they’d trash the comparatively little-used parked entrance in favour of a wider, more open sidewalk.

  • mike0123

    Parkade is missing from my dictionary apparently, which at least gives me some hope.

  • IanS

    @boohoo #3:

    “Yes, it’s better than what’s there now, but is that really saying anything?”

    I’m not an architect, but to my eye it looks better. A lot better, though it doesn’t hurt that what’s there right now is so conspicuously ugly. I suspect the new design won’t be featured on the cover of any architectural magazines as the latest in creative designs, but I can live with it.

    Besides, with the City so eager to spend so much of my money to make the City a worse place (IMO), it’s always refreshing to see someone spending their own money to make it better (again, IMO).

  • Anne M

    I agree with mike0123 that the parkade entrance(s) are a big part of what makes the Howe St side so unfriendly for pedestrians.

  • Shane

    Would love to see a quality rendering of the Granville Street side unless they are as-yet unsure of that.

    Still, it is a shame to see so much lively foot traffic drawn indoors into Pacific Centre. The whole concept of the mall remains very suburban.

  • brilliant

    @Mike 123- “down with the car, down with the car”. Do you and your posse from here have your pitchforks and torches at the ready? The only excuse for such a tiresome tirade is that you just geaduated all wide-eyed from urban planning.

    As to the reskin, nobody will love it OR hate it, its that inoffensive-a Vancouver glass tower turned on it side. But then, its James Cheng.

  • Guest

    It would have been nice if the first two levels fronting Granville were retained for streetfront retail (including 2nd level restaurants) – that would have livened up the Granville facade more than the Nordstrom will (and Granville is grittier than Nordstrom’s higher end image, especially with the nightclub scene).
    There could have even been an interior atrium separating the two areas.

  • waltyss

    @Mike 0123 Ideal would be if they closed Howe to traffic between Georgia and Smithe. However, not a realistic option on weekdays as Howe is a major artery going out of the downtown. But maybe on weekends and holidays they could do that as it would make Robson Square much more inviting particularly if they close Robson between Hornby and Howe permanently (as I hope they do).
    As for access to the parkade,

  • waltyss

    forgot to finish the sentence, keep it north of Georgia!

  • Guest

    Due to the slope of Howe street, the entrance from Howe north of Georgia goes to P2 of the parkade, while the entrance south of Georgia goes to P1 of the parkade. There would be circulation problems within the parkade if one of those entrances were closed.

    The Robson entrance can probably be closed – it has the most pedestrian traffic across it and dates back from an era when Robson was a more significant transportation street than it is today – i.e. Robson previously fed into the old Connaught (Cambie) Bridge. That allignment was abandoned when the current Cambie Bridge was built with the Smithe and Nelson couplet system.

  • Guest

    BTW – the Pacific Centre parkade DOES fill up – especially at Christams time – there are often line-ups of cars to get into the parkade.

  • Roger Kemble

    Awful, banal, listless: my God what have we become?

    And this is to be the city’s supposed rally point: just another foreign consumer emporium when consumer debt is crippling us.

    Yes, how frightening to contemplate what we have become! Truly, this failed city!

    Who remembers the old Vancouver Hotel that occupied that site? Who cares? Too bad! I was there and remember it well.

    I was also there when US architect César Pelli had the impertinence to tell us, “retail continuity on that block is inappropriate” in reference to his design for the erstwhile Eatons (at the time he was employed by Victor Gruen, the huge US mall developer and, of course, had to tow the corporate line) that once occupied the block, now appropriately dubbed, the urinal.

    As for the old hotel, it had an all round chiaroscuro that reflected the shadows and moods of the day that gave that corner a humane touch something profoundly lacking in the thing proposed.

    Pity the current architect is oblivious to the history of the site. Pity our prolix gossipers too! Pity the architect’s taste is all in his chop suey!

    It would be a mistake to compare the Pacific Centre black towers with the quasi Miesian TD Centre, Toronto. At least the latter has figure ground base, bleak as it is, that brings together its four towers.

    That cannot be said of the Granville/Georgia/Robson cacophonous dystopia that should be Vancouver’s proud civic centre.

    So far as the new Nordstrom thing is concerned, it is yet again a confusion of verticals and horizontals (form being horizontal, curtain wall being vertical, not that is matters given the overall disaster). The base has no relation to the banal upper portion.

    The corner entrance spews out onto a busy, noisy corner. Not that such detail matters given the intrusive nature of this thoughtless pile of junk.

    And it is quite discouraging to read these phlegmatic responses: with all the years university training, all the blog gossip we are numbed rather than enlightened! Were is enlightened courage?

    All in all we have a potage of confusion in this part of town that should be Vancouver’s proud centre. Instead, it reflects a semiotic of what Vancouver really is.

    I leave our august and, supposed educated correspondents here to decipher what that is! I hope the architect gets paid.

  • Everyman

    @Roger Kemble 16
    The old Hotel Vancouver was one of the city’s greatest architectural losses. Imagine those massive bison and elk heads staring down onto the street. Strangely if you read the reports from the time, many were happy to see it go. Too Edwardian for the post-war mindset I suppose.

    Ironically the new Nordtroms would probably have fit onto the section of this block not occupied by that Hotel Van!

  • spartikus

    According to Wikipedia, the 2nd Hotel Vancouver was torn down “to fulfill a commitment made by the city with the developers of the third Hotel Vancouver to demolish it – as the new hotel’s design was not as lavish and impressive, and the older hotel was perceived to be too much of a potential rival.”

    Which was a very stupid, short-sighted rationale. But what is done is done.

    There was nothing to prevent someone buying the land, knocking down the Urinal and rebuilding the 2nd Hotel Vancouver…other than the prohibitive cost to recreate the quality of materials & finishing – something which modern developers in this city don’t seem to prioritize.

    And maybe a business model.

    As with most architecture in this city, I am not wowed. I’ve looked at the renderings and sometimes I like it, especially how some of the features recall the old central Library at Burrard & Robson, and sometimes I think “another glass block in a city full of glass blocks”.

    But the architect was given a pre-existing frame to work from. What else could have been done?

    On a different note, whenever these architectural discussions get going it always seems to end up with a long list of comments of “hated it”. Which is fine.

    But it would be nice if people could suggest [contemporary] architecture from this city or especially others they do like.

  • IanS

    “Strangely if you read the reports from the time, many were happy to see it go.”

    From everything I’ve read, that building was widely regarded as a failure, due to numerous deficiencies.

    But, perhaps, Roger is referring to the original Hotel Vancouver?

  • spartikus

    There’s some images of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd Hotel Vancouver’s here: http://www.historichotelsthenandnow.com/hotels/north-america/canada/the-fairmont-hotel-vancouver/

  • spartikus

    Hotel Vancouver’s

    My editor fails me again.

  • Glissando Remmy

    Thought of The Day

    “I know what you’re thinking. “Did he read six comments or only five?” Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is the ugliest building in Vancouver’s downtown, The Greatest White Urinal in the world, and the earliest washroom architecture, you’ve got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?” – James Cheng reflecting over the Frances Bula’s blog comments re. his Nordstrom renditions.

    Spaceship to Mother Earth. It’s a… building, that will get… a retrofit! New clothes over the same old body. Same size. Same use. Only more expensive.

    To me personally, it feels like watching one of those stupid shows where one family takes the other out for a long meal, and when they come back, their living room have transformed by a large team of painters-decorators into something… else.
    What was dark in color is now light. Green carpeting was replaced by natural oak wooden floor. That old, blue battered couch? Gone! Replaced by a read chiffon loveseat from Pier 1. Crystal chandelier by Alphonse? You bet!
    And so it goes…
    Then the pairs return. The “OOoooos” the “Aaahhhhs” the hugs, the “Incredibles” the “Unbelivebales” you name it, then everybody splits, and the credits roll.
    As I said, same here… “Got building?”

    I can only picture James in his 2nd floor office on 8th Ave., outside office hours, in complete darkness, faces illuminated only by the computer’s screen, surrounded by junior architects, planners, developers, coffee making person… looking at the comments on this thread.

    “Listen up people! We had some good feedback, hell, we had some effing great feedback!

    We’ll move all the parking entrances on Georgia. Even better, we could propose a tunnel entrance two blocks away.
    Zip lines on the top S-E Corner descending to street level for faster exit and enhanced experience for all Nordstrom’s guests.

    I want shopping mood changing panels, for the glass curtain wall… Happy! Remember, customer is always right and happy to shop at Nordstrom.

    We need to lobby the city to close Robson Street, between Howe and Hornby. Screw the bus commuters and the cars, I rarely come this way, anyway. Then we could plant strategic designer booths with Nordstrom CSRs in the middle of the street. Just like the Council recommended. Then we’ll throw some green paint on them and call them “green booths”!

    “Ideal would be if they closed Howe to traffic between Georgia and Smithe.” Who said that? Who-said-that? I want this guy on board. Pronto. Great minds like this, come only once in a lifetime!
    Now then… if we could only convince the public, the council, the developer, myself… to screw all this childish homework and build ourselves a 68 stories mixed use tower/ 7 stories of grand retail podium instead… what, did I say that out loud?

    Muahahahahaha…! ”

    This is what I think James would say, if he read all this good stuff in here, IMHO of course!

    We live in Vancouver and this keeps us busy.

  • Mira

    I have no problem with the “Big Urinal” – btw, how interesting that until now none of the former directors of planning or Vancouver architects complained about this building’s appearance.
    have you read any of their comments as of lately?
    It’s like they’ve discovered the Mother of all ugliness. FWIW, what I’m looking at in those drawings… unimpressed!
    Glissy #22
    ROTFLMAO!
    I hope that James reads this and gets his doze of humor for the day. ha, ha… 🙂

  • mike0123

    I agree that the Robson parkade entrance is the bigger problem because it awkwardly crosses the busiest pedestrian street at roughly its busiest point.

    The Howe parkade is not as bad – it doesn’t cross the sidewalk – but it puts the sidewalk into an arcade. The off- and on-ramps are also not typical intersections. I doubt the city would permit this kind of design today. My questions would be if a typical left in-left out parkade entrance/exit is possible there and whether the change has been considered for the renovation.

  • Michelle

    Oh, please, could you leave the parkade entrances… be!? For any of you not in the design profession you have to understand that the entrance/ exit ramps cannot be played with, as you need to get the right angle of incline and turn around radius. It’s not like the architect was asked to provide a new design from scratch, the structure of the building is there, stays the same. Plus, check the traffic patterns around the site.
    Let’s give the architect some space.
    I think Gliss, captured all the excitement in this
    “I know what you’re thinking. “Did he read six comments or only five?” Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being as this is the ugliest building in Vancouver’s downtown, The Greatest White Urinal in the world, and the earliest washroom architecture, you’ve got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?” – James Cheng reflecting over the Frances Bula’s blog comments re. his Nordstrom renditions.”

    LOL!

  • Everyman

    @Mira 23
    I could almost like the original Pelli design (ie. without the ugly addition) if it had more windows at street level. It is not the architect’s fault the owners never kept it properly cleaned, and never made use of the facade as a canvas for interesting projections, light shows etc.

    With regards to the parking lot, didn’t the city get the rights to the revenue as part of the original development? I’m sure that is a nice chunk of change.

  • Mike

    Michelle and Mira are totally the same person.

  • West End Gal

    Boooooooooring! Can we move on to something more exciting, and noteworthy ? Let’s talk about the Little Mountain Housing coop latest evictions and how there is no clear future in sight for this project aka Reno/Retroviction? Yes. Anybody?
    Mike #27 …Huh?
    Is that a comment?
    spartikus #20
    Enjoyed that Vancouver Hotel retro very much. Thanks!

  • Glissando Remmy

    Thought of The Night

    “A picture is worth a thousand words… ”

    If that’s true, then the Nordstrom Pacific Centre’s new look needs only one word … lookalike.

    I want to draw your attention to the Robson/Howe Street entrance rendering shown in the link provided by boohoo #4.
    Take a good look.

    Now, look at the following:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vancouver_Library_Burrard_Street.jpg
    The former Vancouver Public Library/ Virgin Megastore/ HMV building at the corner of Burrard and Robson.

    Coincidence?
    Like Father, like Son?
    Big Brother, Lil’ Brother?
    You be the judge.

    I know, of course it’s a stretch, but still…

    We live in Vancouver and this keeps us busy.

  • Jay

    I guess I’m a bit of a rube because even though it does have a bit of an institutional look, I like it. Although it would be nice to get more detail about what kind of materials are being used to clad the bottom half of the building, and I suppose the slats will be aluminum. Hopefully the glass on the upper half will not be sea-foam green.

    It would be interesting to see some examples of what people here would rather see done to the building.

  • Raingurl

    Just more glass. The whole city is going to be glass if we let these newbies keep designing our city. And while I’m on a rant, what is UP with all the newbies tearing down buildings and putting up new ones? Keep the heritage of Vancouver, leave our city alone. Victoria is looking better and better every day!

  • Mira

    Ha.
    I feel a bit disappointed with you Mike #27.
    You’ve got me! I don’t know how you did it, but you’re good! Or , could it be that every time when two people share the same opinion on the same subject on this blog, and they are not part of the inner circle Vision gang, somebody up there is getting a command to push the “discredit button”.
    Nice try. Alabama and/ or Mississippi not for me!
    FYI, I’ve been commenting on this blog sporadically for the past three years. I can’t talk for Michelle, I don’t keep the presence, that’s your department. What else do you want to discuss about… Nordstrom downtown?

  • Mira

    Ha, Raingurl #31 I just posted mine before the “page refresh” with your comment.
    Absolutely agree!
    Victoria is looking better and better. I am actually going to Victoria this weekend with no particular business, simply to enjoy the low scale, cozy city… and escape from Vancouver, duh! 🙂

  • Lewis N. Villegas

    “Nordstrom” just seems like the wrong brand for this building…

    The “urinal” thing has to be taken with a measure of art history. Marcel Duchamp made the urinal a “found object” by exhibiting one in Paris

    http://i.ytimg.com/vi/d2Y5mUJiaZI/0.jpg

    He also exhibited a snow shovel (signed by the artist, of course). Problem was that it was located near the rear door of the museum and folks just kept walking off with it. Making Duchamp have to keep coming back with more signed shovels.

    Now, doesn’t THAT sound like a Made in B.C. story, eh? But I digress…

    Arthur Erickson got his way, along with his talented team, with Robson Square. And the challenge they issued lies there for any unlucky designer to pick it up and run with it.

    Not a problem that it is a retail box, a ‘urinal’ or anything else. I happen to think that it is the better part of the complex designed by Cesar Pelli, the argentinian born architect of the L.A. Blue Whale.

    The real issue for me is its urbanism, or lack there of. A really bold program would make a feast of this dog’s breakfast and the rest of us would be the better for it.

  • Raingurl

    @Mira # 33

    Victoria is my hometown. I used to “escape” the city’s tourists by hiding in Beacon Hill Park or the (then free) Royal BC Museum. Give me totem poles and ocean spray (off Dallas Road) any day. I hope you enjoyed the “simple life”. I sure miss it.