VivaGrand Developments has applied to the City of Vancouver for permission to develop 1555 Robson Street, a site at the corner of Robson and Cardero Streets in Downtown Vancouver. The 132 x 131 ft site is located in the West End Community Plan which rezoned the property to C-6, which conditionally allows for a market residential highrise if social housing and commercial space is included.

The site sits directly south of 1550 Alberni, a 43-storey condo tower by Westbank currently under construction.

The proposal is for a 28-storey tower that includes:

• 177 residential units including 24 units of social housing;
• Retail on the ground floor;
• Office space on floors 2-3;
• Social housing on floors 2-7;
• Condos on floors 8-28;
• A total density of 9.63 FSR:
• A building height of approximately 300 ft.

Vivagrand acquired the site in October 2017 for $79,500,000 or $455 per buildable SF based on the gross floor area in the application.

The architect for the project is IBI Group.

The full development application can be viewed here: https://development.vancouver.ca/1555robson/index.htm

A development application has been submitted for the first phase of the Oakridge Centre redevelopment, for which the overall development plan was approved earlier this year. 

The first phase will consist of two towers (Towers 3 and 4), and a portion of the future park. Details include:

• one 32-storey tower (Building 3) and one 42-storey tower (Building 4)
• 504 market condo units;
• 212 one-bedrooms, 260 two-bedrooms & 32 three-bedroom units;
• a podium containing retail/office Uses (Levels P1 – 6);
• 173,113 SF of office space in Building 3;
• all over three levels of underground parking;
• a portion of the future 9-acre Park;
• a total density of 0.74 FSR;
• a maximum geodetic building height of 189.38 m for Building 3, and 217.28 m for Building 4.

The application describes the design rationale: 

“Skin & Bones Concept
The metaphor of skin and bone is the ordering principle for the Architectural Tectonic. It is born from the idea of draping the Mall with a landscaped Park. The act of wrapping or revealing becomes architecturally significant when defining the relationship between the landscape and buildings, as an approach to breakdown the mass of the buildings, as a passive solar strategy to have the buildings respond to their environment, and for providing wayfinding and programmatic identity.

Skin as Veil
Expanding upon the skin & bones concept, the skin is treated like a fine light fabric that wraps the buildings in a unifying veil. It is both delicate and protective, and is expressed architecturally as a plane of Curtain Wall that extends past the building itself in vertical and horizontal fly-bys. The Curtain wall design is reduced to its essence of transparent glass using 4 sided SSG, grey sealant and gaskets, light colored shadow boxes and only horizontal spandrel. The extent of the wrapping of the veil is related to the buildings orientation, as the veil opens toward the light, allowing the deep recessed terracing of the bones to shade the spaces within.”

The architect for the project is Henriquez Partners Architecture.

A rezoning application has been submitted for a 25,265 SF site at 1102-1138 East Georgia Street in East Vancouver, which is currently improved with four older lowrise industrial buildings. The site is currently zoned I-2 Industrial, but the area falls within the Downtown Eastside Community Plan, allowing a mix of uses, including residential. Allowable density in the neighbourhood has been identified for up to 2.50 FSR for mixed-use proposals in the I-2 zone through a rezoning.

The proposal is for a 4-storey mixed-use family-oriented development, including:

• • 37 residential units (20% are social housing);
  • 2 studios, 4 one-bedrooms, 1 two-bedroom & 30 three-bedrooms;
  • a total density of 2.50 FSR; and
  • 16,145 of creative/production/retail space on the ground floor.

The application describes the design rationale: “The proposed development massing steps down from the western edge of the site at the intersection of Glen and East Georgia towards the adjacent RT-3 zoned homes to the east, providing an appropriate transition in scale in the context of the neighbourhood. The massing is in keeping with the eclectic mixed-use community of Kiwassa East and through this form enhances the diversity of housing and commercial opportunities.”

The housing partner for the project is ANHART Foundation.

This application is being considered under the Downtown Eastside Community Plan.

The architect for the project is Ekistics Architecture.