SQUARE FEET

Redevelopment Project Doubles as Social Experiment

By LINDA BAKER
Published: November 24, 2009

Photo: Farah Nosh for The New York Times
The mixed-use Woodward’s project is at the edge of a rundown neighborhood in Vancouver, British Columbia.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — This city of elegant luxury condominium towers and grand public spaces won the right to hold the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in part because of a promise to create “the inclusive Olympics.” But critics have long complained about a blotch on the city’s self-image as an urban utopia: the Downtown Eastside, a notorious high-poverty neighborhood known for its concentration of homeless people and drug and crime problems…

Mr. Henriquez is an award-winning designer of affordable housing and the co-author of the book “Toward an Ethical Architecture” (Simply Read Books/Blue Imprint, 2006). Mr. Gillespie is known for building the most expensive luxury condominiums in Canada, including the Fairmont Pacific Rim, a downtown Vancouver waterfront property now selling for 2,400 Canadian dollars a square foot.

Mr. Henriquez said the project was intended to revitalize the Downtown Eastside, but not to gentrify it. To meet this objective, the development will pack many diverse tenants onto the site — a strategy that Mr. Henriquez described as generating “body heat…”

Read the full article at nytimes.com.

West Enders upset at planned 22-storey rental tower in their midsts

BY CHERYL CHAN, THE PROVINCE | NOVEMBER 8, 2009

Photo: Ric Ernst, The Province
Developers have applied to rezone and develop the site of St. John’s Church on Comox and Broughton in Vancouver and build a 22-storey residential tower in its place. Proponents say it will increase badly-needed rental stock in the city. Residents argue it’s too tall a tower.

…Gregory Henriquez of Henriquez Partners, the architectural firm in charge of both projects, said he understands the community’s fears but stressed that the buildings will increase much-needed rental stock in a neighborhood where vacancy rates are less than 1 per cent.

…Mike Donnelly, who has been renting in the West End for six years, is keen on the new projects.

“If it means that there’s more affordable options for renters like me, I’m all for it,” he said.

“I’d be curious to know how much the units would be going for because I’d like to switch to some place nicer and newer.”

Read the full article at theprovince.com.