After more than a year constructing the underground parkade, construction at the site of the new luxury hotel/residential project at 1153 West Georgia Street, has reached grade level. Sales are expected commence later this year. The developer, Holborn Group, had originally anticipated completion by 2010, but the project was delayed.

Trump Tower Vancouver Construction, picture by Built Form (SSP)

Trump Tower Vancouver Construction, picture by Built Form (SSP)

Grosvenor presents redesign to council.

A shorter, more architecturally distinct version of the mid-rise development earmarked for the 1300-block of Marine Drive in West Vancouver took one more baby step towards realization.

Council voted unanimously Monday night to hand the revised blueprints to its design review committee.

The height of each building has been reduced by one storey and between 20 and 27 feet from the original design. At seven and six storeys, the two terraced mid-rises would now measure 79 and 68 feet, respectively.

The buildings would also feature smaller units than originally planned, giving the project 100 units with an average size of 1,771 square feet.

News of Cadillac Fairview’s proposal for a 65-storey, 580-unit rental apartment tower at Queen and Yonge St. in Downtown Toronto is interesting for Vancouver observers. The proposal indicates that the development will have zero parking stalls. Instead, it will include 580 bicycle spaces are planned instead. The building appears to be absent of unit balconies as well.

This particular site includes demolition of an existing retail space and preservation of an existing heritage building, and based upon the location, parking probably won’t be necessity for most urban residents.

This begs an interesting question however, would the outright or partial relaxation of parking requirements for a downtown rental project be viable from a rental or construction perspective? There are many buildings in the West End that do not have any parking, and this does not appear to impact rents…

Recent efforts to reduce parking requirements for Vancouver condo projects have yielded mixed results; such as the MC2 project at Marine and Cambie where units sans obligatory parking stall were apparently much slower to sell. Is rental different?

The design for a proposed 32-storey office building at the corner of Granville and Cordova (currently a multi-level parking garage) have been changed in advance of an Urban Design Panel meeting next week. As we reported last year, the project is for an office tower with a density of 25.5 FSR and 380,000 sq. ft.

Here’s a look at the new design:

Photos courtest: Built Form @ SSP

‘Modello’

Boffo Developments‘ project at 6225-6255 Cassie Avenue has now gone through the first reading stage of rezoning, and has been referred to a rezoning scheduled for May 28, 2013. The plan is for a 170-unit, 37-storey residential tower above a commercial podium with frontages on Beresford and Willingdon Avenue. The commercial component will include retail, office and a liquor primary establishment.

The project is being rezoned under the Metrotown Centre Development Plan, which allows higher density for existing RM-3 and RM-5 zoned properties.

Project stats:

• Site area: 46,166 SF
• Total density: 6.28 FAR
• Total floor area: Residential: 224,323 SF; Retail/Rest: 24,959 SF; Office: 33,600 SF
• Unit Mix: 170 units              (36 one-bedrooms, 87 two-bedrooms, 47 3-bedrooms)

Source: City of Burnaby, Boffo Developments