The Salient Group

The Woodward’s Experiment
Vancouver Magazine
September 1, 2009
Michael Harris

The Woodward's redevelopment is a massive social experiment bringing people together, regardless of income Image Credit: Christina Lanteigne

Who says East is East, West is West, and never the twain shall meet?

From his book-crammed office on the sixth floor of the Dominion Building on Hastings, Jim Green has monitored the reinvention of Woodward’s. If Woodward’s is anyone’s baby, it’s his. Beginning in 1985 (five years before the store was shuttered), Green led the community lobby for its transformation into a complex that would draw all elements of the city into one mixed-use mecca. His opening came in 2003 as the province, which owned the land, was trying to get a reticent COPE city council to sign off on the Olympic bid. When Gordon Campbell asked how he could get council’s support for the 2010 Games, Green, a COPE kingpin, gave a list. One element: “I need Woodward’s.” The deal they struck: the City bought the whole block for $5.5 million. (It was valued at four times that.) And somewhere in there, the Olympics got a new tag: “The inclusive Olympics.” Green believes the urban experiment that followed will be mimicked in other cities. “I’ve studied this for a long time,” he says, “and there’s nothing like this anywhere in the world.”

At the fractious joint between the Downtown Eastside and the posh towers to its west, architect Gregory Henriquez has designed a new kind of urban hub. In its conjoined towers are one million square feet of market and non-market homes, government and nonprofit offices, a contemporary art school for SFU, a grocery store and other retailers, and a childcare facility. On one city block, this microcosm of the city wreathes a central courtyard that has the potential of a train station. “The whole city should be mixed-use,” Henriquez says. “Anything less is a tragic mistake. Human lives are not meant to exist in compartments.”

Read the full story at Vanmag.com

by Bruce McCoubrey
26th May, 2007

Investors are considered to represent 70% of the market for new strata products, according to two prominent Vancouver developers. Even two years ago when CMHC estimated investors made up half the market it raised eyebrows.

“At least 70% of our buyers are investors, not owner-occupiers,” said Scott Pettipiece, sales manager at The Salient Group, which is converting the old Gastown ‘Paris’ Building into lofts that will sell for about $500 a square foot and up.

In a marketing outline for the new 198-suite Dolce tower at Smithe and Richards, by Solterra Development Corp. estimates that investors will account for 70% of buyers, with the rest a mix of first-timers and move-up buyers. (Marketing begins later this month and figure units to start in the $600 per square foot range.)

Bear in mind, that while we have warned the assignment market is flashing some ‘risk’ signals (i.e units that have been sold but not completed), Robin Adamache, CMHC Vancouver analyst, said that, as of the end of March, there was “zero inventory of completed and unsold new condominiums in the downtown core.”

Adamache added that, “in all of Vancouver there are only six new and unsold condominiums on the market and they are all in Marpole.”

You can read the original story here: Bruce McCoubrey’s Market Insight