lemongrab
Active Member
I agree this is all true, but I might challenge the timeline and what the 'path-not-taken' would have actually looked like.
Walking through Vic Park to hockey games in the mid-late 90's I recall seeing hookers and drug-deals. If left to evolve organically, isn't there a strong risk of a Vancouver-eastside-light scenario?
There were 11 residential(ish) blocks south of 11th/east of Macleod - (excluding the block that was pretty much entirely for Victoria School). Looking back at aerial imagery:
2004 - 2 empty; 6 had fewer than ~five dwellings; 2 blocks ~half full; 1 mostly full
1999 - 2 nearly empty; 7 ~half full; 2 mostly full
1995 - 2 nearly empty; 7 ~half full; 2 mostly full (only noticed about 3 total dwellings different from '99)
1988 - 2 nearly empty; 7 ~50-75% full; 2 mostly full (extra 0-3 dwellings on most half-full blocks compared to '95)
1982 - All blocks mostly full (a few empty lots here and there)
Having seen the longitudinal evolution I might have structured the above differently, but I think it shows the trend.
It appears the biggest 'extinction-events' happened leading up to '88 and again at the turn of the century. The 2 nearly empty lots are in the SW corner (now Casino parking and half of Halls DEF) - they both went from full to empty between 1982-1984.
I guess like many things in this city, the die were cast in the 80s...Vic Park definitely didn't get the low-mid-rise redevelopment we've seen in most of the other 'inner-donut' around DT, but it's probably the high-rise leader (albeit between Macleod Trails + 3 north of the Stampede casino; I'll have to look at West Vic Park evolution later).
The interesting thing is that the two paradigms may be closer to converging than we might think:
Before: https://goo.gl/maps/SpYBZtfPGyZXmG3eA
After??
The natural instinct has been that the Stampede/entertainment district needs to connect/blend with DT arts district to the north...this is true, but it hasn't happened for myriad reasons (plus CPR common denominator which seems to prevent any sustained N-S vibrancy). I think my Remington arena location would essentially bridge that final gap, but I don't trust either Stampede or CSEC to facilitate vibrant retail (which has been the hope for Olympic Way--north).
I'm a lot more optimistic that fixing Stampede Station (and extending 17 ave) will do more than anything catalyze the eastern beltline...if only we could do something about the funeral homes and wacky religious stuff we'd be set! The next question will be how much of a negative impact Macleod Trails will have - which prompts a lot of fun fantasy ideas, but it will be interesting to see how it plays out in reality.
Most hilarious is that even in Stampede Park the bias towards vehicle capacity *also* doesn't reflect reality of how people access the destination - many thousands of people on game-days walk or take the LRT. So many people do this in fact, that this sidewalk is often overflowing onto the street after a game - we are so car-centric in planning Stampede Park, we didn't even give a wide enough sidewalk for people to walk efficiently back to their parked cars
View attachment 398754
The Olympic Way sidewalks are particularly perplexing. I think the idea was that they'd be totally redone as soon as Stampede Trail development kicked off (I'm still looking for my shaker of salt...). It's hard to tell from satellites, but it looks like those trees have been there since the early 2000s or earlier. The fences went in around 2010 and it's baffling that they wouldn't set them back further (god forbid some blades of grass get trampled).
