Esquimalt is great, isn’t it?
For the most part, that’s what it was like when we were growing up. Everyone assumed Esquimalt was the proverbial dump but the neighbourhoods were beautiful, the people pleasant and courteous, and the schools were great. Rockheights is another gem of a neighborhood that people are bewildered by when they first encounter it. Same for Parklands and Saxe Point.
Old Victoria was so backwards in so many ways when it came to an ideal address.
As a Gordon Head/UVic area kid back in the day the main thing Vic West - Esquimalt was knocked for - aesthetics aside like the utterly dead VW harbour area which really took a hit after the rail-tracks were removed in ~ 1968, was the fact it was full of "pongo's", a derogatory non-Esquimalt-ese term for navy personnel, who frequented the many pubs then existing in the muni, and which for the most part are either gone or re-developed today.
That image of young drunken sailors, hundreds of thousands of miles from home, causing all manner of disturbance in the bars and on the streets, terrorising the innocent residential folk, was of course greatly exaggerated but one which we completely bought in to at the time: "A party on Friday night - in Esquimalt? !?? Alex make sure you have that Louisville slugger in the trunk - just in case".......
Yeah Rockheights, Saxe Pt, Parklands - a real undiscovered gem for many - and Selkirk are all first rate.
What I like most of all is that in the case of this development and those of us who live near it is that we're central to everything - the Gorge waterfront and fabulous waterfront "stroll" along Gorge Rd - which is magnificent compared to the sewer that waterway was in the 70's due to all the pollutants dumped into it which made it Victoria's largest open air toilet; the three main "get out of town" highways, and in our case we're 5 minutes or less from no less than eight major grocery stores. Not to mention downtown if we choose to head that way for whatever reason, is also maybe a 6-7 min drive via the JSB.