Crossing Main Street and the city’s historic railway station, an area that Mr. Beasley predicts could become the new eastern edge of a re-oriented downtown, he turns left towards the viaduct’s Union Street off ramp. Here you can see evidence of recent neighbourhood renewal, sparked primarily by the 10,000 new residents that have arrived here in the past decade, lured by projects like Citygate, and more recently by the Olympic Village.
On the southeast corner of Main and Prior, the old Bank of Montreal building has become a hip new space called the Denim Gallery Café. On its northern flank, the shrine to Jimi Hendrix speaks of the area’s history, and the sad fate of Hogan’s Alley, bulldozed for the new viaduct. Despite community opposition at the time, it was destroyed while Strathcona was narrowly saved from demolition by a robust residents association. “We really have to thank those people as city-building heroes,” says Mr. Green. “Just imagine what this place would be like if they hadn’t fought it.”
Now Union Street is alive with new shops, cafes, businesses and housing. The month-old David Nicolay-designed Union Bar is doing a brisk business.
“If the viaduct area opens up,” says Mr. Nicolay, “it would be a great boon to the neighbourhood and would link the surrounding areas that now function as little islands.”
The new viaduct precinct plan is beyond the concept of the “other side of the tracks”, says Mr. Beasley, “it’s about removing the tracks altogether. People in the downtown eastside will have beautiful park systems and a huge infrastructure of amenities that were previously denied to them.”
Turning West on to East Georgia, we drive past a parking lot at the edge of a lane that will soon be a 28-unit, nine-storey residential building. It was designed by Inge Roecker and Birmingham & Wood Architects to fit the 25-foot lot typical of the area and to engage with its lane culture. Project architect Sandra Moore hopes that, “the lanes of Chinatown will once again provide primary access to retail, businesses and dwelling units as they have in the past.”
She notes that the south end of the lane flanking the site that meets the viaduct, “has huge potential to become a pedestrian/bike corridor connecting the viaduct precinct to Pender Street – the heart of Chinatown.”
Next, Mr. Beasley drives us down that very street, past Peking Lounge, a furniture and interiors boutique, and Bob Rennie’s new art gallery, making a left at International Village, a mixed use, 15-year-old development.
“You see how Abbot is such a great urban street,” says Mr. Beasley,” with shops, housing, theatres, cafes. And then suddenly – there’s the viaduct. It just stops everything abruptly with no consideration for the nature of the neighbourhood.”
To our immediate east, urban streetscape dissolves into empty parking lots.
“If people have the courage to come together and implement this plan...” says Mr. Beasley, “...It could be the crowning glory of the city,” interjects Mr. Green, finishing Mr. Beasley’s sentence.
“This could be Vancouver’s defining moment.”
Special to The Globe and Mail
