Highrise

Jan 21, 2023

Opinion: Highrise hubs around transit stations have their conveniences, but could benefit from more diverse street life, treed landscapes and interesting buildings Author of the article: Article content Nice views. Handy transit. Intense street traffic. Convenient shopping and services. But bland character, at least so far. Advertisement 2 Article content Try refreshing your browser, or All in all, not too bad. Vancouver Sun Informed Opinion Sign up to know what's really happening by reading daily editorials and commentary by British Columbia's opinion leaders Email Address Sign Up By clicking on the sign up button you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. You may unsubscribe any time by clicking on the unsubscribe link at the bottom of our emails or any newsletter. Postmedia Network Inc. | 365 Bloor Street East, Toronto, Ontario, M4W 3L4 | 416-383-2300 Thanks for signing up! A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder. The next issue of Vancouver Sun Informed Opinion will soon be in your inbox. We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try again Article content That about sums up the verdict of people interviewed who live and work at the dense glass-and-steel highrise hub that has shot up in the past eight years at the congested intersection of Vancouver’s Cambie Street and SW Marine Drive. The cluster of tall residential highrises and offices is an example of the way Metro Vancouver is at the leading edge of a trend of squeezing large populations into tight urban zones next to rapid-transit stations, often in neighbourhoods where detached homes predominate. Article content It features the SkyTrain Marine Drive Station, which links downtown and beyond with Vancouver International Airport. It has eight concrete towers, some soaring 30 to 40 storeys. Panoramic views. Chain outlets: Subway, T&T Supermarket, A&W and Neptune Palace Seafood Restaurant. The rental apartments and condos come with granite kitchen counters. The daycare has high-tech security. The highrise hub is like many others peppered across Metro Vancouver. A University of B.C. urban landscape specialist, Patrick Condon, says local politicians have embraced, like almost no others in North America, the planning model based on organizing high-density projects around rapid-transit stations. The model emerged in North America in the 1980s, Condon said, with the idea that the intense-population nodes would counter the problem of suburban sprawl. Across Metro Vancouver, even bigger agglomerations reach into the sky at Oakridge in Vancouver , Metrotown, Brentwood and Lougheed in Burnaby, the waterfronts of New Westminster and North Vancouver and in Surrey Centre. Advertisement 4 Article content The model has advantages in terms of transit and shopping convenience, said Condon. But one problem is “the tower-district lifestyle is completely different from the one enjoyed in traditional neighbourhoods, like in Kitsilano and at Commercial Drive, where you will see lots of people you come to know and there is a general diversity of interesting landscapes and buildings.” “It’s a bit cold,” Robert Teodoropol, 27, said of the highrise hub. He works in an office tower at Cambie and Marine and was checking out its apartments. “I wouldn’t say it has much character. There is not much of a lived-in feel. All the office staff go home at 5 p.m.” The young engineer was still drawn to the place, however. He had just finished a tour of a 19th-floor view suite, measuring 490 square feet, that was renting for $2,650, with parking. “It’s a bit pricey,” he said, “but it’s luxury.” Advertisement 5 Article content Marine Gateway resident Ricardo Mendes doesn’t mind that most of the green places good for a dog walk are at least half-a-kilometre distant. jpg Ricardo Mendes, 42, a Brazilian who had proudly obtained his Canadian citizenship a week earlier, said he generally appreciates living close to so many amenities, including the SkyTrain, banks, grocery stores, Winners department store, dental offices and places to eat. Although Mendes finds Marine Gateway quiet in evenings, he was taking his Boston terrier out for a walk next to the truncated Canada Line bikeway and didn’t mind that, except for tiny Ash Park, most of the green places he likes for a dog stroll are at least half-a-kilometre distant. Scores of overgrown lawns in the low-rise neighbourhood of detached houses on the north side of the intersection of Cambie and Marine now sport “For Sale” or development signs. The real-estate industry is eagerly putting together land assemblies for more towers. Council has already approved two more big adjacent ones. Advertisement 6 Article content “I think it’s a nice place. I think it’s getting its identity, definitely,” said Meidy Liu, 21, as he grabbed a coffee at Starbucks, which is located across from the Dublin Crossing pub and the outdoor escalator to the Marine Gateway Cineplex Cinemas. Dozens of red Lunar New Year lanterns decorated the main plaza. The high-density Cambie and Marine hub favourably reminds Liu’s friend, Mike Wong, 30, of growing up in a conglomeration of apartment towers in China. “I like the style. It’s like a real city. A city shouldn’t have low-rises. It should have highrises. I know some people like the freedom of living at ground level, but I like a view.” UBC’s Condon appreciates that tower districts like Marine Gateway offer attractive lifestyle features, such as “great views, immediate access to the region via SkyTrain and commercial services at your feet.” Advertisement 7 Article content But they lack the fluid connection that more leafy residential neighbourhoods have between schools and commercial streets, the urban design professor said. Traditional neighbourhoods have “thousands of owners who can choose their ‘own darn paint colour.’” That is different, he said, from “the necessary homogeneity of one condo association operating an inflexible glass, steel and concrete tower occupied by hundreds of people.” Condon tends to favour medium-density neighbourhoods, served by a network of surface transit systems (such as European-style trams) that are spread more evenly across a city than SkyTrain lines. Instead of massive highrise clusters that are often financed by offshore sources, Condon said, a less concentrated network supports small-scale builders interested in serving the “missing middle” in housing.