The Woodward’s Project: Coming soon, the insider’s book

Brian Hutchinson June 23, 2010 – 7:00 am

From the folio “Demolition: September 30, 2006,” by Shawn Lapointe, in the book “Body Heat.”

Something that makes Woodward’s so complex and fascinating is the crazily diverse cast of characters responsible for it. Their stories are well told and illustrated in a meaty, good looking book for release this fall. Body Heat: The Story of the Woodward’s Redevelopment is published by a small house in Vancouver called Blueimprint and is edited by Robert Enright. I was lucky enough to receive an advance copy. It’s very good. The interviews and memoirs inside are enlightening and frank, and while some things aren’t said, a great deal is. Here’s a snip from a Jim Green anecdote, about one Governor General’s Downtown Eastside visit during the redevelopment negotiations phase:

“…there was some commotion as we turned onto Hastings. We realized Adrienne Clarkson wasn’t prepared to walk across the street. So we had to circle around Cordova and come back on the south side of Hastings right in front of Pigeon Park Savings, so that she could get off the bus and walk directly into the reception, catered by Bishop’s Restaurant, which was all shrouded off so nobody could see in. And she talks about how we have to embrace our new immigrants. I left the minute the dinner was finished.”

…The many voices and brilliant pictures from artists and designers don’t align to form one monolithic view, which is part of the book’s value. Here’s from an account called The Healing Place, by Liz Evans. She’s co-founder of the Portland Hotel Society, a non-profit that operates 125 units of single occupancy, non-market housing inside Woodward’s:

“When they were marketing the condos for the Woodward’s project, our advice was just don’t lie. Put the homeless people on the advertising posters, put on the guy with the guitar and the bottle in his hand. It’s stupid to pretend otherwise. Try and attract people who want to be in a diverse, urban community, people who get how amazing this community is…if we start filling 600 new condos with people who are going to call the cops every time they see a homeless person, then we’ve failed. We’ve created a total nightmare for the community.”

The marketing people behind the Woodward’s project did put a guy holding a guitar on their advertising posters. These are usefully represented in Body Heat. The man isn’t clutching a bottle. He looks like a friendly, bearded busker. A marketing lie? Well, he’s not the whole truth, of course. The marketing people sold out the pricey market condos in a single day.

Who are these people who bought in? How many of them live here? How far really does the Woodward’s ballyhooed inclusivity stretch? Here’s where I’ve come in, I hope. I’m living at Woodward’s for one more week, the fourth. Not nearly done yet. There’s more big-picture Woodward’s impact stuff to come, and more upstairs/downstairs inside looks. To fully grasp the story, you’ll have to wait, and get the book.

Read more at nationalpost.com.

The Woodward’s Project: Award winning parking, easy on the eyes. Who’d have thought?

Brian Hutchinson June 16, 2010 – 6:30 am

Photo: Christopher Grabowski

Can a parkade possibly be interesting? Photogenic? Award worthy? Surprisingly, yes. When local architect Gregory Henriquez, managing partner of Henriquez Partners, designed the massive, 830-stall Gastown Parkades for the City of Vancouver, he saw beyond the mundane. Before landing the commission early in the last decade, Mr. Henriquez recognized that the $32 million parking structure could be something more than just functional, and part of something bigger.

The Gastown Parkades were completed in 2004. They straddle the alleyway separating Water Street in Gastown and Cordova Street, hence the plural “parkades,” I suppose. A year later they captured an award of excellence from something called the International Parking Institute. When you think about it, why shouldn’t good parkades be recognized?

Across Cordova was the old Woodward’s department store, sitting empty. It was to come down and the area revitalized with a mixed housing and retail development. City planners always had in mind that one day, the two projects would meet. And so they have. The Gastown Parkades and the Henriquez-designed Woodward’s district are now linked by a glass-encased bridge. Many of the residents in the Woodward’s development’s two tall condominium towers are assigned stalls inside the parkades.

Like any inner-city parkade, these ones have issues with vagrants. A couple of secondary stairwells are used for unseemly things. Some of them smell awful, and you can guess why. But I’ve used the place to park on occasion and haven’t had a problem at all. The main access points and elevators are fine. The security seems reasonable, despite the secondary stairwells stuff, and the men who patrol the structure are pleasant. Once I learned to navigate from street level to my favourite spot on Level Four, next to the pedestrian bridge that connects the parkades to the Woodward’s development, I began to look around. Features I’d overlooked suddenly popped out: the drainage and filtration system for moving Vancouver’s copious rainfall; the use of three kinds of stone on street facades that subtly reflect the district’s heritage; the ivy that covers the Water Street facade; the use of colours, textures and other detail.

Perhaps the most impressive thing is how well the Gastown Parkades integrate with Gastown and Woodward’s. The building is playing an important role in the Downtown Eastside’s slow renewal. It’s prescient. And easy on the eyes.

Photo: Brian Hutchinson

Read more from The Woodward’s Project at nationalpost.com.

The Woodward’s Project: 30 Days in the DTES

The heart of the Woodward’s development. Photograph: Brian Hutchinson

By Brian Hutchinson June 4, 2010

The Post’s Brian Hutchinson is embedded for a month in Vancouver’s notorious Downtown Eastside. The Woodward’s Project is an online and print series that chronicles his experiences as part of a unique urban experiment to bring together rich and poor in the most derelict, subsidized and politicized neighbourhood in Canada.

Welcome to The Woodward’s Project blog, where I’ll be posting daily dispatches and photographs from Canada’s most ambitious mixed-used inner-city housing complex, a $400 million social experiment in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. The DTES is the country’s original–and still its most notorious–skid row, and now an extremely diverse place that’s home to thousands of people: artists, entrepreneurs, drug addicts, lawyers, criminals, retired loggers, activists, sex trade workers, military veterans, punk rockers, hipsters, and yes, ordinary families. And middle-aged white guys like me.

I’m living in the Woodward’s complex for the month of June; The National Post has rented a small condominium in one of the private residential towers. Here’s the view, looking straight down at what is really the heart of the development, the public areas. As you can see, everything is tightly packed:

That’s the big atrium, under glass; top of photo is a portion of the Simon Fraser University campus; to the right is a children’s play area, atop the family housing complex. To the left is a building with yellow window coverings. This is the low income housing for single men and women.

I’ve been looking around this week, meeting neighbours, getting acquainted with the folks living in the social housing units and with others down the street, in shelters and in single room occupancy hotels. I’m taking the pulse of a thriving community, new and old, and learning that it’s hard to define–and is ill defined. People are proud of this neighbourhood, ugly and violent as it often is.

This blog will compliment The Woodward’s Project feature series being published in the National Post print and online editions. The feature series will offer readers the big picture: News, profiles and investigative pieces related to the Woodward’s development, its impact on the DTES, and the rough politics, crime and scandals that continue to dominate the surrounding neighbourhood. Here, you’ll find more quirky bits and pieces about life and work and food and most everything else about the DTES, and it won’t be limited to Woodward’s. This is just the opener; we’ll really get started this weekend. Comments and suggestions are encouraged.

Read the full blog at nationalpost.com.