Pacific Metropolis

Lower Lonsdale Developments

As one of the older suburban newspapers in the Lower Mainland, the North Shore News has a long history of getting local residents riled up over just about anything. Not that that's hard to do, with all the cranky old-timers living on the North Shore.

Anyway, we were interested to come across a mildly supportive article about a proposed 36-storey (400 foot!) tower for the Lower Lonsdale area, which is sure to upset the NIMBY community.

In an obvious ploy to curry favour with seniors, the building's design is modeled after a 1921 luxury passenger liner that was once built at North Vancouver's shipyards. The building is going for LEED Silver certification, and will be hooked in to the area's geothermal heating grid.

As part of the deal, North Van would transfer density to the tower, in exchange for investment in amenities, among which are included a seawall, new public wharf, and public art.

Aside from this development, North Vancouver has for some time now been kicking around long-term plans for a new SeaBus terminal and bus loop, a new terminal for the Whistler Rocky Mountaineer, and an east-west street car.

As with other regional town centres, North Vancouver is already undergoing a fair amount of densification thanks to the multi-building Pier development, which is currently under construction.

Adding to the future bustle of the lower-Lonsdale area is the proposed National Maritime Centre, and a revamped Presentation House theatre.

For an overview (with plenty of photos) of development plans for the Lower Lonsdale area, check out this Price Tags article (link to pdf), which was originally published back in 2004.

Downtown New Westminster

Continuing our periodic tour of the GVRD's Eight Town Centres, we thought we'd make our next stop New Westminster - the Lower Mainland's original town centre.

Looking at the residents, one might easily think that things haven't changed much there since the late 1800's. But you'd be wrong - New West is actually undergoing a renewal, after several decades of horrible decay.

The revitalization of New Westminster is anchored by the 4-tower, 800 unit Azure at Plaza 88 development, which is currently under construction in the area around the Skytrain station and the New Westminster Quay.

Significantly, the project's retail component calls for the integration of the Azure complex with the Skytrain station, by building stores just a few steps away from the train platform. Among the key shops: a grocery store, a drug store, and a liquor store.

The other big kid on the block is Aragon's 1000-unit Port Royal development, which primarily consists of 'courtyard homes', in addition to one 19-storey building, called the Q. The six-year project is situated along the Fraser, on a 20-hectare site in the Queensborough neighbourhood.

Other notable developments in the area include the 9-storey Anvil, the 19-storey Quantum, and the three-building News project.

There's also Salient Properties' planned restoration of the heritage Trapp Block, among other projects.

Coquitlam Town Centre

Since we've found ourselves in Coquitlam this week, we thought we'd take a look at what else is going on at the emerging Coquitlam Town Centre. (Click map for a larger version).

It's one of the GVRD's eight Regional Town Centres, which planners hope will bring greater density to the area around the Coquitlam Centre shopping mall - a future stop along the Evergreen Line.

Among some of the latest highrise buildings that have either been proposed, or are under construction in the area, are the following:

• Obelisk (35 storeys)
• Levo (2 buildings, 38 storeys each)
• Westwood Village/The Edgemont (26 storeys)
• The Regency (27 storeys, 163 units)

In addition to these four projects, this past February another proposal for a two-building development (28 and 33 storeys, 550 units in total), called the Grand Central went before Coquitlam City Council. For more info, click here.

Pictured below - the Regency.

Getting into the spirit of the GVRD's Sustainable Region plan, the marketing for Bosa's Westwood Village says it all - 'cars are optional here, because the options for shopping, dining, recreation, nature and the perks for everyday living are endless and just steps away.'

Pictured below - the Edgemont.

For more information on the City of Coquitlam's Town Centre Plan, where you can find maps, the OCP, and other details about future development in the area, click here.

And in case we've missed anything, contributions from readers would be most welcome as well.

Getting out of the City

As mentioned at the beginning of this year, we've been planning on taking our coverage outside of downtown Vancouver, to have a look at some of the new development that is occurring in other parts of the GVRD.

Over the next few weeks, we'll cover some of the biggest projects that are going up in each of the Eight Town Centres, and in a few other places as well.

(Click here for our original post from a couple years ago on the Eight Town Centres).

A recent report by the GVRD stated that by 2031, the GVRD could be home to 3.3 million people, up from 2.2 million today. (Link to Sun article here).

So how will our region accommodate all of these new residents?

Density seems to be the answer (or 'intensification', as they call it), as the Liveable Region Strategic Plan aims to increase the concentration of people in each of the town centres.

Essentially, this means building more apartments or multi-unit dwellings in place of detatched homes or former industrial lands. This is preferable to the other alternative, which would mean extending our urban sprawl by building out over the region's agricultural land reserve.

So, as new developments are rapidly rising in places such as Burnaby, New Westminster and Coquitlam, we figured that now would be a good time to see how these new town centres are starting to come together.

Since we'll be straying out of our familiar territory, we'll appreciate any contributions from our readers, especially as they pertain to information on projects we've missed, and construction photos as well.