Inside Vancouver July 8, 2023

What’s happening

More than 600 guests, including Burnaby Mayor Mike Hurley, joined Ledingham McAllister for a barbecue lunch on June 15 to celebrate the ceremonial final concrete pour at the Azure II Tower. “The towers you see going up behind me are the first three: Azure I, Azure II, and Icon, of what will be a 60-acre community comprising 29 towers, 36 lowrise buildings and over 400,000 sq. ft. of commercial space,” said the company’s president and CEO, Ward McAllister. Once complete, residents can also enjoy Southgate City’s shops and services, including a gourmet grocer, restaurants, cafés and a community centre.

Commemorating sawmill workers

Beedie Living’s Fraser Mills will have seven streets named after men who worked at the former Coquitlam sawmill. The sawmill, which operated between 1890 and 2005, will be developed into a 96-acre waterfront master-planned community. The first street will be named after Sock Masumi Seki, one of the first Japanese children born and raised there. Seki returned to work at the sawmill after the forced interment during the Second World War. Other honourees include Hor Too “Barney” Kong, a Chinese labour contractor, who resided there from 1912 until his death in 1953, as well as three generations of the Ghuman family, such as Daya Singh Ghuman, who immigrated to Canada in 1906 and worked with his son, Katar, at Fraser Mills.

Vancouver ranked among the top five places in the world to live

Vancouver may be one of the most expensive cities in Canada, but when it comes to the livability index, it ranked fifth in the world. The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) Livability Ranking and Overview looked at lifestyle factors in 173 cities worldwide. Each city was assigned a score for more than 30 qualitative and quantitative factors across five categories: Stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education and infrastructure. Vancouver scored 100 in both healthcare and education. It can also have bragging rights to being the highest ranking city in North America. The four cities that beat out Vancouver are Vienna, Copenhagen, Melbourne and Sydney.

Indigenous art initiative

Local developer, Cape Group, has partnered with the nonprofit, Digital Hopes, to add art to some of its buildings. Its inaugural art piece by local Cree artist Jesse Gouchey will adorn Terraces on Seventh, a residence for independent and assisted-living seniors. Gouchey’s painting tells the story of the four directions and seasons around the four-building entryway pillars. “At Cape Group, we want the art that we incorporate into our buildings to have local meaning and history, while also supporting talented artists who often don’t get the opportunities that they deserve,” said Cape Group CEO, Reisa Schwartzman.

Did you know?

The City of Vancouver will open a satellite office within Chinatown in July. It will be located on 112 Keefer Street within the Chinatown Plaza shopping mall, across the street from the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden and the Chinese Cultural Centre Museum.