Given it's context of essentially being in a highway/power centre offramp in a purely car environment, it could be worse or just another big box store. But that's about all to say about it, there's nothing here that takes the area up a notch or creates a more urban, human-centric environment. Seems like a case of performative urbanism. Lots of nods and boxes checked on the surface, without an intention/ability to actually build something that would actually meet the goals that the check boxes are designed for.

More surface parking, there is very little transit-orientation anywhere in the design and there is about a 0.1% chance those double-sided CRUs will actually face outward to the street rather than into the interior parking lot when the building opens. I would also be worried that any intersection upgrades triggered by this development will create a bunch of slip and turning lanes between the station and the development, moving it even farther from a transit-oriented or human-centric design.
 
1875 said:
from the looks of this youd think the transit they are orienting around is the automobile

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🤮Not even a TOD. All that land could be used more efficiently by creating a street network around the station along with some ramping above grade parkades or on-grade parkades under the midrises, as seen in Europe or even Superstores/Walmarts in Canada. This sort of planning would stay true to a TOD and keep suburban automobile drivers happy. Really, who on earth comes up with this crap and calls it a TOD? When will the city and developers learn? Then we wonder why we have so many roads and parking lots to clean and very little tax revenue.
 
It is a very awkward parcel to develop, but it could orient towards the LRT station. Would have been a decent site for office space, but the demand isn't there.
 
im not going to live or die with this one way or the other. the only thing that crossed my mind how would i feel if this was the westbrook lrt lands.

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though its pretty awful its density at 162 ave that cant seem to get off the ground 2 stations from downtown.
 
1875 said:
im not going to live or die with this one way or the other. the only thing that crossed my mind how would i feel if this was the westbrook lrt lands.

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though its pretty awful its density at 162 ave that cant seem to get off the ground 2 stations from downtown.
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If this was the Westbrook lands I would barf up my heart and die. Thank gods this is on the periphery.
 
Looks like this is under construction. It isn't great, seems to relying again far too heavily on parking (for being literally right next to a C-Train station, that is silly). Meh is my feeling.
 
YYCMax said:
It looks like the groundbreaking will be soon as the DP was issued on Mar 31, and the updated brochure states groundbreaking in Spring of 2021. A few new pieces of equipment have been brought onto the site in the last few days though there doesn't seem to be much work going on at this time. Trico will be building this phase as the equipment brought to the site has Trico logos on it, and there is also a Trico sign that has been placed there (edit: I also just noticed the Trico logo in the brochure). IMO the design of these Phase 1 buildings looks quite decent, though the overall design of the whole TOD is definitely shitty. Nonetheless, I'm certainly looking forward to there finally being some real activity on this site as it has sat mostly idle ever since they got rid of the overflow parking lot and built the loop a few years back! Hopefully the other 2 parcels of this TOD will have DPs submitted for them sooner rather than later!

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The building looks pretty good. Here is hoping they wise up after Phase 1 and drop the excessive waste of space parking on the rest of the project. It is supposed to be a TOD ffs...

At least it is residential over retail. Baby steps is all we can seemingly do here in this city.
 
Alex_YYC said:
To be honest, IMO, this is still a win. The building design is reasonably good and it's filling up a parcel of land that has been a wasteland for years. The way the area around the parcel of land has been designed doesn't allow opportunities to do much.
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Give me a pen and paper and I'll lay out a 10x better design on that parcel. When the developer has a suburban mindset, we're gonna get these sort of mediocre designs. If they really wanted to include public parking for suburban drivers, they could have easily built a 3-4 story above grade parkade like seen in other cities across Canada. That would allow even more land available to develop more units on, particularly if it was laid out in a grid format. This is nothing but a lazy design and maximizing profit through minimal effort on the developer's part. If something like this was presented to any metro Vancouver council, especially next to a transit station, it'd be straight chucked into the garbadge bin.
 
gsunnyg said:
Give me a pen and paper and I'll lay out a 10x better design on that parcel. When the developer has a suburban mindset, we're gonna get these sort of mediocre designs. If they really wanted to include public parking for suburban drivers, they could have easily built a 3-4 story above grade parkade like seen in other cities across Canada. That would allow even more land available to develop more units on, particularly if it was laid out in a grid format. This is nothing but a lazy design and maximizing profit through minimal effort on the developer's part. If something like this was presented to any metro Vancouver council, especially next to a transit station, it'd be straight chucked into the garbadge bin.
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Agreed. They really need to stop allowing these kind of things to go through. Look at Westman Village, University District and West District. We can and are already doing better. I am hoping that they change their Phase 2 design. Phase 1 I still do not find that bad as a start. Hopefully we can somehow give feedback, and you could send your design for the rest of the area :)
 
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