Pacific Metropolis

Gastown Workspace

Besides the new lofts and condos, it turns out that Gastown also has some great places for people to go to work. The innovative Workspace 'drop-in' office is perhaps the most innovative.

But don't take our word for it. Check out this potty-mouthed endorsement from one of its members.

Essentially, the concept is to provide a work environment that's halfway between a coffee house and a shared-office facility.

Among other things, they have a variety of work areas, including a cafe, conference room, and a lounge. They even have separate cell-phone rooms, for added privacy (and silence).

Probably the best part of this setup is the atmosphere - besides the trendy loft setting, it also has gorgeous views of Vancouver's Harbour and the North Shore mountains.

The above video is part of a series on YouTube, which shows how the heritage building was renovated during the summer of 2006. There's six in all - search on 'Workspace' for additional videos.

For more information about membership and rates, check out their website here.

Redesigning Gastown

Via the Real Estate Channel, we came across this interesting video about the current changes that are occurring in the Gastown area.

Yes, it's a piece of real estate industry marketing, but it's admittedly well-produced.

Rather than overplaying their hand, Concord Pacific has done a pretty good job of capturing (okay, 're-packaging') the Gastown neighbourhood.

The short version - Gastown is fast-becoming a shopping destination, with plenty of design stores, galleries and trendy restaurants, set in one of Vancouver's most historical districts.

The video's so good, it almost worked on us.

At the very least, we now expect to see droves of Yaletown residents packing up their BMWs and moving to Gastown over the next few years.

More about new construction in the neighbourhood later this week.

Will and Don in the City

Since nobody really likes to do much heavy thinking on a Friday, we decided to link to the following new promo spots for the Donovan building:

Go to www.donovanlife.com, scroll down, and click on watch donovan life.

The developer's press release says that the series is supposed to be a mix between Will and Grace and Sex in the City. That sounds about right, since the penis jokes in the first episode are definitely more HBO than Must See TV. (You've been warned).

Amusingly, the production manages to achieve a certain amateurish feel, largely due to its continuity problems.

For instance, although the main character drives into the city on a rainy day, whenever the film cuts to external scenes, it's beautifully sunny outside. No doubt the developer wanted a few glamour shots of Yaletown - they're pitching the condo lifestyle, after all.

And of course, some of the writing is preposterous, with lines like 'you're in Yaletown now!' (as if it were some magical place), and 'people are so extroverted around here. They're nice. They're friendly...!' (wtf?)

Oh well. Such are the pitfalls when marketing weasels put their hands all over the creative process.

Vancouver Bike Bridge?

A couple of weeks before Heritage Vancouver put the Burrard Street Bridge on the top of its most endangered list, Pricetags made an interesting suggestion - rather than expand the bridge's sidewalks with an ugly deck, why not build a separate bicycle and pedestrian bridge over False Creek?

Pricetags went on to note that the proposed sidewalk expansion is set to cost $20 million anyway, while other bridges such as the Sundial Bridge in Redding, CA came in at $24 million when it was built a few years back.

Another prominent pedestrian footbridge, the Millenium Bridge over the Thames in London, cost about $43 million when it was completed in 2000. (Click photo for a larger version).

As it turns out, back in 2001-2002, the City commissioned a study to consider several new False Creek crossing alternatives, including 3 new-built bridges. (Link to potential crossing sites here; evaluation form here).

Unfortunately, the proposed pedestrian-bicycle bridges scored poorly on several important criteria, among them being usage, neighbourhood integration, appearance and cost.

Maybe it's worth reconsidering the idea now - especially if we're looking to spend $20 million to deface the Burrard Street Bridge, why not cough up a little extra to build something more iconic?

Not only would such a bridge encourage more pedestrian and bicycle traffic in the downtown core, it would make a powerful, symbolic statement about Vancouver's leadership in sustainable development - perhaps even moreso than the SEFC project.

So how about it? And where should we put it...?

Vancouver 2010 Promo Spot

Since YouTube is so, like, 5 minutes ago, we decided to check out Brightcove to see what they've got goin' on. It's so cutting edge, they're still in Beta!

Among other things, we found an interesting promo spot for the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games.

It's a well-produced piece, which sort of makes us feel as though things are back on track, after our disasterous presentation at the Turin Olympics closing ceremonies (brought to you by your local high school PTA).

Our favourite part of the vid: towards the end, where the kid is skating alone on a vast, frozen lake.

And for you construction gawkers out there, there's more than a few shots of Vancouver's luscious urbanity in the film as well. Enjoy.

Say Goodbye to the Mushroom?

This past weekend, the Vancouver Sun ran a series of stories contemplating the future of BC Place Stadium.

Although the recent roof collapse served to focus the public's attention on the aging structure, it turns out that for several months now, provincial and City officials had been considering what to do with BC Place once it's done hosting the opening and closing ceremonies for the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Apparently, insiders expect that the post-Games future of BC Place will be decided within the next year.

So...this leaves us with a few options to consider.

We could, of course, leave the stadium where it is. Renovate it or rebuild it, but continue to use the prime land on which it sits for our city's main sports facility.

Another option is to tear it down and rebuild it elsewhere. Turn the current site over to developers, and let them build more condos, possibly with some office space and maybe a park thrown in.

With this option, the proposed Whitecaps stadium might then come into play, since it would seem to make more sense to build a stadium that both the Whitecaps and Lions can use. However, a 35,000 to 40,000-seat stadium on the Gastown waterfront would probably be too big. Should we have our sports teams build something on the False Creek Flats instead?

A more radical suggestion would be to do what the Montreal Alouettes did - move to a university field. The smaller venue helped bring back that more intimate, old-school feeling to attending CFL matches - they've been selling out games at McGill Stadium ever since.

So how about expanding Thunderbird Stadium, and having the Lions and Whitecaps play there? Such a plan might even provide that added impetus to extend the Millenium Skytrain Line out to the UBC campus, post-2010.

There's all kinds of wild speculation and hypotheticals here, but the point is to throw out some ideas. Should we have two stadiums or one? Should we build a smaller, more intimate playing field on the waterfront, or something larger or more practical on the city's 'back lot'? Or, should we keep BC Place where it is, but rebuild it entirely after the Games?

Postscript: It turns out today's lead story on the front page of the Province is asking the same kind of questions that we are. Click here for the article, which includes comments from Bob Rennie.

Vancouver: Architecturally Finished?

Back in February 2005, Sun columnist Trevor Boddy wondered aloud whether Vancouver might soon be architecturally finished:

"...the complete development of all highrise sites on the downtown peninsula is already within sight. More than most of us realize, downtown Vancouver got architecturally 'finished' over the past several years, by and large.

"Decades, maybe centuries from now, historians will tour Downtown South, Coal Harbour, Concord Pacific, even our core downtown and be amazed to find cornerstone after cornerstone bearing dates reading '2003', '2004', and '2005'."

Although his prediction might have been a little premature, Boddy does raise an interesting point about the most recent building boom in Vancouver - the current period, say from 2003-2010, will quite possibly be seen as a Golden Age of sorts, when much of Vancouver's ultimate form was substantially built out.

As for the question of whether downtown Vancouver is architecturally finished, we'd be willing to bet that there are some further touches still to come, not least of which will include the new Vancouver Art Gallery, the proposed Dalai Lama Centre, and possibly a few other suprises.

Bob Rennie, among others, would probably argue that the future of development lies east - towards his Woodwards project, and beyond. There's also the potential to develop some of the Gastown Waterfront lands with mid- to low-rise buildings, if issues related to the railyards can be sorted out.

Others would add that there are still plenty of empty parking lots in the Downtown South neighbourhood that could be built up, while Concord Pacific has yet to unveil plans for its North False Creek development.

And finally, we can always tear down old buildings, as one reader recently suggested we do with the Sears building.

The Renovation of W

For a well-produced - although absurdly melodramatic - depiction of the Woodwards building demolition, check out the video below.

If it feels like it's moving along a little too slowly, the demolition finally gets underway at around the 2:00 mark, while some interesting pre-demolition footage of the site begins at about 3:20 into the video.

The best thing is, this is part one of a three-part series, which will presumably be continued over the coming years.

For our previous coverage of the Woodwards Development, click here and here.

Real Estate TV

Via Metroblogging Vancouver: For those real estate junkies who can't get enough of the local property market, and for the rest of us who just like to gawk at shiny new condos with their granite (granite!) kitchen counter tops, Vancouver now has its own, 24-hour real estate network.

If you're a Novus customer you can find it at channel 80 on your dial, otherwise you can also go to their website at www.realestatechannel.ca.

Unlike your father's old community-tv listings which featured still photos of crappy properties, the Real Estate Channel features slick videos of beautiful places, which you can download to your PC, iPod or other mobile device.

One can't help but feel that the future has finally arrived. One also can't help but wonder whether this new venture will survive the looming correction in the local condo market. It's a tough time to start, at the peak of the bubble, but we really do hope they can hang in there -the site is well put together.

To check out a promo video for the channel, click here. Besides apartment listings, you can also download video profiles of local neighbourhoods and real estate brokers. (One minor flaw though, is that the streaming is a little clunky. Best to wait for the entire video to download before watching it).

Lastly, Concord Pacific has an interesting promo video that you can find here. It shows a brief aerial before & after shot of North False Creek, in addition to previews of other developments from around the province, and in Toronto.

Vancouver Time Lapse

Although this video may be a little long at just under six minutes, it has some great time-lapse pictures of Vancouver that someone has taken from their Yaletown condo.

The best shots include those of the clouds rolling past Wall Centre, and a freighter being moved by the tides out in English Bay. Worth a look.