Condominium developers in one of Vancouver’s fastest growing neighbourhoods are taking innovative steps to preserve heritage and capitalize on False Creek’s industrial charm.
City staff are considering allowing Cressey to offer a private business below-market rent and have that cost be considered a community amenity contribution (CAC). The concession would be a first for Vancouver.
“We’re in early days in those discussions, but it’s certainly what I consider an intriguing idea,” City of Vancouver director of planning Brent Toderian told Business in Vancouver.
Cressey plans to build an $85 million, 12-storey condominium tower called Meccanica in southeast False Creek.
The project is named after car manufacturer Intermeccanica, which since 1982 has built replicas of 1950s-era Porsches at a shop on East First Avenue near Quebec Street.
Allowing Intermeccanica to lease space in the finished condominium tower, which is likely to be completed by late 2013, would be a way to incorporate the old with the new, said Cressey vice-president of development Hani Lammam.
Intermeccanica owner Henry Reisner said the opportunity to stay on East First Avenue was beyond his wildest dreams. He was excited that Cressey wanted to pay homage to the company that his father started in Italy in 1954.
In addition, colours in the Meccanica’s 169 homes will resemble those that Porsche used on some models in the 1950s.
Cressey also plans to incorporate car-themed accents such as leather handle-bar grips on kitchen sink faucets into each Meccanica suite.
“The way we differentiate the project is how much we’ve grabbed on to the history of the site,” Lammam said.
Contributions to private businesses are rarely considered a public benefit. But Toderian said exceptions can be made, particularly given the extraordinary effort the city has made to retain elements of heritage in the rapidly emerging southeast False Creek neighbourhood.
Cressey has been part of that effort before. It named its $87 million, 155-home James project at 288 West First Avenue after James Doherty, who, in the mid-20th century, owned ship deck equipment maker Progressive Engineering Works on the current James’ project site.
The biggest initial nod to preserving heritage came in 2009 when the city spent $10 million to renovate the Salt Building on the site of what is now the Olympic Village. In the early 1900s, workers refined raw salt in that iconic red structure.
“Heritage starts with the Salt Building,” Toderian said, “but you can see smaller details where we have preserved heritage.”
Seats near the village’s plaza are made to resemble stacks of wood or metal dock ties. Railings similarly incorporate a nautical theme.
But Toderian believes the most significant heritage-restoration project involves the historic red Opsal Steel building at the corner of East Second Avenue and Quebec Street.
The city granted Bastion Development Corp. bonus density for a 24-storey tower if the company spent millions of dollars to restore the 94-year-old Opsal building.
Workers painstakingly dismantled that building, numbering pieces of wood so they could rebuild it at a slightly different location on the site.
Bastion also transferred density from the old wood structure so that its planned glass tower could be the neighbourhood’s tallest building, said Daren Akinci, Bastion’s development and marketing co-ordinator.
“We labelled each joint. So each joint will be put back where it was previously was,” he said. “It’s pretty hard to restore a building without doing that when you’re going to put up a 24-storey tower next to it.”
Aquilini Investment Group co-owner Francesco Aquilini has also been a keen advocate of preserving heritage. He told Business in Vancouver that preserving the Maynards Auctioneers building at the corner of West Second Avenue and Wylie Street is a core part of his three-building, 253-home Maynards Block development.
Aquilini believes the site would be perfect for a grocery store, but he has yet to lease it. •
