[Disraeli]

That section of 7th has been deader than dead since the CTrain took over 7th.

Even with the rest of the strip being vacant, the Palomino and the Eden nightclub adds more street life to the area than Telus Sky and the Bow combined based on my experience going to shows at the Palomino. The Palomino is one of the only bars left in the city with any character

 

[Habanero]

Even with the rest of the strip being vacant, the Palomino and the Eden nightclub adds more street life to the area than Telus Sky and the Bow combined based on my experience going to shows at the Palomino. The Palomino is one of the only bars left in the city with any character

Exactly. We also went from having Art Central and the York at that intersection to sterile office towers, especially The Bow. I don’t want to see it get even deader.

 

[Disraeli]

So ... investing millions of dollars to save one block of derelict buildings that no one will miss, is going to save the day?
I agree about the sins of the past. The city planning around heritage buildings has been incompetent at best. The pictures that JoeUrban posted earlier ... before and after ... are stark reminders of this. However we can't change the past and fighting a lost cause on 7th Ave, is a waste of time an energy.

Who said it would save the day? It would help prevent making things worse by leaving a little slice of character and history to a street that has been almost completely sewered by soulless development.
I don't give two shits about Triovest's investment. They could have proposed something of a modest scale that was more receptive to preserving heritage but have instead gone with the good old fashioned block buster approach to development in this city.

 

[haltcatchfire]

I got 241M, but either way still below the height of Brookfield.
Essentially a boring building that blocks out my view of Telus sky from Stephen Ave

“Employee #43 please come to the boardroom.”

“It has come to our attention that our 350 million dollar, 66 storey, 287m, tallest in western Canada tower is actually only 240m. Would you like to explain yourself?”

 

[smart_development]

It's going to destroy the character of the neighborhood downtown by adding a neighborhood. Fight this on every front.

Aesthetics and nostalgia add more vitality than people living in an area. Any good urbanist knows this. PS by good urbanism I mean Europe (where they value the aesthetic brick) and not Asia who support anti-vintage "functional" urbanism in their megacities.

 

[YourBoy007]

Aesthetics and nostalgia add more vitality than people living in an area.

I wholeheartedly disagree. No way Jose.

 

[O-tac]

Someone on SSP said they heard that the office tenant isn’t even some new tech company but one that is leasing an 80’s building and wants to move. Thus creating more vacancy. I bet it’s some oil company since they seem to love razing heritage structures, promising the moon and then doing a bait and switch for a massive parkade that destroys an entire block. Sound familiar?

Edit: OMG what if it’s CNRL? This seems like the type of asshole move Murray Edwards would make. Maybe that massive podium is hiding a new arena?

 

[FCC1982]

Delving deeper, the heights of the towers are actually Condo: 238.9m (784 ft), Rental 202.6m (665 ft), Office 119.5m (392 ft) , podium L6 roof 28m (92 ft)

There's a major error in the grade points on the schematic section. 0.000 starts well below the parkade P5 level that shows 29.3m.

Brookfield is 247m so it looks to me that this remains the tallest and this new tower falls short by 26 feet.

Nooooooo.
Damnit - I knew there was something screwy with those datums. And I couldn’t see how 66 residential floors was enough to get to 280m.

 

[Thrillhou]

Someone on SSP said they heard that the office tenant isn’t even some new tech company but one that is leasing an 80’s building and wants to move. Thus creating more vacancy. I bet it’s some oil company since they seem to love razing heritage structures, promising the moon and then doing a bait and switch for a massive parkade that destroys an entire block. Sound familiar?

Edit: OMG what if it’s CNRL? This seems like the type of asshole move Murray Edwards would make. Maybe that massive podium is hiding a new arena?

Interesting. Though I highly doubt it would be CNRL, Suncor seems more likely to me. Building a new fancy building is very much counter to CNRL's mantra of low cost operator.

 

[Mountain Man]

CNRL is mostly in Bankers Hall West, I can't see them wanting to move out of there.

 

[Calgcouver]

Venturing a guess at possible build-to-suit tenants in tow for the office portion: someone had mentioned that these are tech-sized floorplates in an amenity-rich space like a lot of the new Vancouver office towers and they are absolutely right. If i were to guess, Neo Financial just attained unicorn status after there Series C round, and they seem like the kind of group that could be on a growth trajectory that would be looking for a build-to-suit option to house all of there operations by the time that this space is built and ready for tenant fixturing.

 

[Mountain Man]

Neo is taking the 2 top floors of the Bay building and have a floor or two in the Edison, I doubt it's them. I do wonder if the city could block the office part, I definitely think it's irresponsible to build.

 

[haltcatchfire]

Nooooooo.
Damnit - I knew there was something screwy with those datums. And I couldn’t see how 66 residential floors was enough to get to 280m.

No biggy. Just add another 18 floors and take it out of the paycheque of employee #43.

 

[Urban4Lyfe]

It's going to destroy the character of the neighborhood downtown by adding a neighborhood. Fight this on every front.

Aesthetics and nostalgia add more vitality than people living in an area. Any good urbanist knows this. PS by good urbanism I mean Europe (where they value the aesthetic brick) and not Asia who support anti-vintage "functional" urbanism in their megacities.

This is objectively not true.

 

[darwink]

Sometimes low cost can result in different things. CNRL's spaces are old, and they might want to move to unified standardized plan, and it might make sense to instead move entirely to a new to them space to achieve minimum of disruption. They may view their current space as inadequate quality.

There can be other things informing a large move as well. If a company was moving to a greater proportion of hot desks, and was targeting less than 200 sqft for employee, all around a concept of collaboration, they could try to adopt large floor plate along with it as the style of the time. If the company didn't think that could work spread over 30 different floors, but it could spread over 6 including 3 full donuts, then you have the podium full.

Not saying it is CNRL, just that it isn't always about having the lowest cost per square foot.