Inside Vancouver - March 20, 2021

A Feast for the Eyes

This Canadian premiere at the Polygon Gallery in North Vancouver captures the history of photography through the subject of food. Featuring the work of Nobuyoshi Araki, Nan Goldin, Cindy Sherman, Andy Warhol, and more than 60 more renowned artists, this sweeping show will be on display from March 4 to May 30, 2021.

Michael Ferreira Predicts Return of Investors

At the UDI Virtual Luncheon on Wednesday February 24, Michael Ferreira of Urban Analytics, which tracks presale statistics and trends, addressed a virtual crowd of over 500 members of the Urban Development Institute, which represents the development industry. Looking at the hard numbers for 2020, new, multi-family or presale condo sales in 2020 were the third-lowest since 2011, but he was very surprised it wasn’t worse, due to the total lockdown in the second quarter of the year. But, because prices had flattened after the provincial tax policies in 2018, there was a bunch of pent-up demand from two years that got released in 2020. The results of that demand were seen with very strong sales in the second half of 2020. Since 2018, he explained, investors had been on the sidelines, and They “took their time to gauge what was going to happen.” Going forward this year and next, he thinks, “We are going to see the investor (buyer) come back into the market, but it’s a much more longer-view investor. It’s not the speculator that we were seeing in 2016 and 2017,” when there were double-digit percentage price gains each year.

Westbank and World Housing build homes for 2,000 in Cambodia

As part of the sales of the iconic Vancouver House, Westbank teamed up with World Housing for a pioneering initiative to build one home in Cambodia for each home sold in Vancouver House. This successful partnership has created 375 homes for Cambodians formerly living in the Stung Meanchey landfill in Phenom Penh. This project has since become a model that has been used in other parts of the world, with a recently completed village in Banteay Srey finished in February 2021.

Broadway Plan

The City of Vancouver is completing a comprehensive area plan for Broadway between Clark Dr and Vine St. The 30-year plan will focus on opportunities to integrate new housing, jobs, and amenities around the new Broadway Subway in the neighbourhoods of Mount Pleasant, Fairview, and Kitsilano. The planning and engagement process began in March 2019 and will finish in late-2021, and included an Emerging Directions workshop on March 9th, where interested community members learned about the major stakeholders, the construction considerations and the planning goals for the project. Participants were asked to contribute their ideas and concerns, which will be incorporated into the next phase of the planning process.

Concert Properties Unveils North Harbour Project

Concert announced last week, seven years after the project was approved by council, that its North Harbour will emerge as a diverse, vibrant neighbourhood that will be built in four phases. When completed, this industry-leading, mixed-use, community will span across a half kilometre of the North Shore waterfront. North Harbour will have up to 17 mid-rise buildings that provide a mix of housing types, alongside approximately 290,000 square feet of retail and office space. The residential portion will be made up of approximately 900,000 quare feet of market condominiums, townhomes and independent seniors living with roughly 80,000 quare feet dedicated to rental housing. As planned, there will be over 700 condominium homes, 110 rental homes and 125 seniors living active aging homes built in the North Harbour community. The first phase of the project begins with the development of four buildings at the eastern edge of the community. The first building will include 164 condominiums and townhomes in a nine-storey building. This will be followed by two seven-storey condominium buildings with 59 and 44 homes respectively and a 10-storey rental building with 110 rental homes. This first phase will also include commercial at street level in three of the four buildings.

Did you know?

The provincial government announced on March 8 that work has begun on the new St Paul’s health campus at the vacant 18.4-acre gravel lot at 1002 Station Street — just southeast of Vancouver’s Chinatown.