We are proud to announce that two of our Gastown projects were recently recognized by the urban development industry. Paris Block and Paris Annex received a 2012 Award For Excellence at the Urban Development Institute’s biennial awards. The projects won Best Urban Infill at a black tie gala held on October 26.
As the first city in Western Canada (west of the Great Lakes) and the original capital of British Columbia, New Westminster has a rich history. This rich history is evident in the sights and sounds of the city — today, many government, education, commerce and medical institutions still call New West home.
One great example is the Royal Columbian Hospital. What started as modest wood-frame building at Agnes and 4th is now one of the top employers in the Royal City. RCH and its large trauma centre help one out of every five patients in B.C., making it one of the most important institutions in the region.
This year, RCH is celebrating its 150th anniversary, a big milestone for an important New West institution.
In our last blog post, we told you about an initiative to get the community’s input about the future of downtown New West. Through a partnership with Vancity Buzz, we’re geting input from the community, and we’re thrilled to see feedback from journalists, politicians, and homebuyers, but most especially from current New West residents.
We also shared our philosophy about selecting businesses for our retail spaces. From our history working in urban communities, we realize the importance of retail in creating neighbourhoods with a story and a unique pulse. For New West, we’re looking to connect with businesses and groups who will work with us to build vibrant communities, much like what we have done in Gastown.
To give you more ideas on what we’re looking for, we would like to showcase some of our current Gastown retail space occupants and why we love them. Here are some of the businesses that we have welcomed:
Exclusive home decor lifestyle store Orling & Wu specializes on European-inspired fabrics and home objects.
At Salient, we strive to bring innovation and livability, not only to our projects, but also through a sincere desire to understand the neighborhoods that we join. We believe that a community’s strength is founded on an area’s history and its people.
And while this authentic history is irreplaceable, we believe that evolution is inevitable, and is best informed upon not only by those who have forever occupied it, but those who aspire to also make that place their home.
Affordability is always hot topic for homebuyers in the Lower Mainland, and so we couldn’t help but compare Trapp + Holbrook to similar projects in other areas.
Using a mortgage calculator and the advertised prices of one-bedroom apartments for various projects, we were able to confirm what we knew all along: Trapp + Holbrook provides the most value. Here’s what we found:
For $1630 per month, you can own near Vancouver City Centre
Vancouver’s Broadway area has homes for around $1365 per month
Homes in the Metrotown area of Burnaby can be purchased for $1169 per month