122 replies to this topic

[Mike K.]

Of course you’d have that take.

[aastra]

What, is it a crime now to make a clever play on words? Why are you acting like a baby? Go have some candy.

[aastra]

Stop trying to rob me of my enjoyment.

[aastra]

Like I said in the Blanshard Courts thread, the new construction in this Scott Building redevelopment seems almost comically small scale. The Scott Building itself is a substantial heritage repurposing project. Methinks the new construction should have been at least a junior highrise. (The housing crisis seems to be everywhere except where you want it to be.)

 

That intersection is still an urban "no man's land" for the pedestrian. It's a gaping wide intersection and for reasons unknown the buildings diminish as you get near it. When you're walking around there you feel like you've been transported into Pixar's "cars" world. Methinks this Scott Building project represents a tremendous missed opportunity.

[Vin]

I think this scale is pretty good for this part of Victoria. The heritage portion of the Scott Building is better accentuated for the scale. The built form will have retail as well as a little landscaped plaza. Also it will act as a landmark for the transit system as this intersection hosts quite a few major bus lines including the Ferry/airport line, and is an important bus transfer hub.

 

Overall, I am sure this will turn out great, although I still like the previous rendering much more. If the surrounding areas can be built out eventually, this neighbourhood will turn out really nice with its atypical intersection reminiscent of older cities.

[aastra]

I'm just imagining the day when there are towers at Blanshard Courts, towers on Ross Lane, etc. If you do it well you could make the traffic-centric portions of Douglas or Blanshard seem more intimate. Less like a highway, more like a downtown street. When you walk around there the traffic is loud and grating, and you just feel very exposed as if you're walking in an area where you're not supposed to be walking.

[G-Man]

I am with you on this Aastra. I think that the Scott Building would have looked better and stood out more with a taller building beside it. 

[Mike K.]

It’s a shame, that now you’d have an automatic 10-storey allowance there. Instead it took what, 2.5 years to secure approvals for the current woodframe iteration?

Victoria was stuck in the 70s up until last month. The suburbs are even worse.

I am curious to see if Esquimalt will approve the 900s proposal, designed as a 2024 proposal for 2024.

[aastra]

Yeah, but the seniors' building on Ross Lane and the office building on the north side of Hillside were built years earlier and they're both about as tall as a ~10-story residential building. It's as if everything was temporarily dialed back and tightened up re: the Scott Building project, but now the sky is the limit again. Where's the sense?

 

It peeves me because anyone should be able to see how that Hillside/Bay area could have finally resumed the kind of proper downtown-style development that it had been doing way back in the Scott Building's day, before the auto became king and everything changed. Or maybe people could see it, and they didn't want it to happen? Even though it's going to happen anyway (with official encouragement) on other sites in the vicinity where it wouldn't be such a logical/natural fit?

[aastra]

I'm going to say there are still several property uses in that immediate area which don't seem to jibe with the "housing crisis" narrative. Prime property is scarce, there's a desperate shortage of suitable land... or maybe not.

[aastra]

Methinks if any of the housing crisis blather was genuine and if any of the other political blather about every other issue was genuine then somebody would have clued in by now that the sorely underdeveloped Douglas/Blanshard Street strip represents almost unfathomable opportunity, considering it's the year 2024 and that stretch effectively marks the center bullseye of the core municipalities.

 

Question: has anybody ever talked semi-seriously about a pedestrian/cycling overpass at Blanshard and Topaz?

[Mike K.]

Humber Green is what the area is called.

[spanky123]

Yeah, but the seniors' building on Ross Lane and the office building on the north side of Hillside were built years earlier and they're both about as tall as a ~10-story residential building. It's as if everything was temporarily dialed back and tightened up re: the Scott Building project, but now the sky is the limit again. Where's the sense?

 

It peeves me because anyone should be able to see how that Hillside/Bay area could have finally resumed the kind of proper downtown-style development that it had been doing way back in the Scott Building's day, before the auto became king and everything changed. Or maybe people could see it, and they didn't want it to happen? Even though it's going to happen anyway (with official encouragement) on other sites in the vicinity where it wouldn't be such a logical/natural fit?

 

IIRC, there are geotechnical issues in that area which limit what you can build. 

[Mike K.]

There is the 12-storey tower coming to the TC building’s parking lot, so there will be some height. Then there’s the 20-storey towers proposed for Blanshard Courts.

@Spanky, I didn’t realize there are geo tech issues there. Any specific sites?

[aastra]

If memory serves, wasn't the original redevelopment at Bay/Blanshard supposed to have been something a fair bit larger than a strip mall? But then there were issues re: the excavation? Or did I imagine that?

[aastra]

I was thinking of this debacle:

 

 

Times-Colonist
November 12, 1982

Third Lane Restoration Ordered

City council Wednesday ordered the city engineer to complete work to save a storm drain and restore the third traffic lane on Blanshard Street at the Island Plaza Hotel construction site.

Construction of the $10 million hotel at Blanshard and Bay streets has been halted since September.

Last week, the city and the builder's crews installed a wedge to hold up the city storm drain which runs through the site.

Mayor Peter Pollen suggested the third lane could be left closed "to reflect our understand of the economic times for the owner."

He said it would take a large amount of fill to shore up the road which collapsed last summer, and there would be a large capital cost to the owner to take it out later to continue with the construction.

[aastra]

In another article they say the Blanshard St. extension/reconfiguration involved the removal of 200 trucks of soil per day. Apparently it was all dumped out Blenkinsop way?

[Mike K.]

Yes, I'm curious now too. First I've heard of soil issues there.

[Mike K.]

From late November, looking from Douglas Street towards Hillside Avenue at left.

 

 

[aastra]

Yeah, this is what I was thinking of. It was a deep excavation but it ended up being a one-level strip mall.