https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Martins_Tower is a 140-metre (460 ft) office building
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_Restaurant is a revolving restaurant located at Level 33 https://www.crestaurant.com.au , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F557lO6Wy_U
While a building this size (140 m) has become like a stump in Perth and Seattle, it would still be a prominent tower in stumpy Vancouver, BC.
Some experts say shifting job needs are making future demand for office space harder to predict https://www.biv.com/news/technology/ai-uncertainty-hangs-over-vancouver-office-market-12348582
Was Vancouver somehow generations ahead of AI in not allowing tall office towers. In many cities a 30 story office tower is like a stump. Even a 40 story office tower would just be average, at best.
Given the strict height limitations of Vancouver, the 30 story TD_Tower wasn't completed until 1972.
That means that during its construction, Vancouver had its first office tower rising over 29 floors in 1971.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TD_Tower_(Vancouver)
https://www.skyscrapercenter.com/building/the-stack/35667 38 floors
https://www.canadianarchitect.com/the-stack-zero-carbon-office-tower-officially-opens/ 37 story
https://www.mmoser.com/projects/the-stack-rooftop-vancouver 37 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amieA9XHAVQ
https://macleans.ca/culture/building-vancouver-stack-work-life-balance/ 37
https://www.oxfordproperties.com/lease/office/31191 36
https://www.adamson-associates.com/project/the-stack-1133-melville/ 36
https://www.reddit.com/r/skyscrapers/comments/1k7dt3j/the_stack_vancouver_bc/
https://www.urbanyvr.com/oxford-properties-announces-major-tenants-of-the-stack-at-1133-melville/
Was a 450 foot height restriction just a chance, or was it intentionally made to be very close to 451 Fahrenheit? Honolulu is still stuck around that maximum, while San Diego is at 500 feet.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451 (1953) By the 1950s, so many things were already banned, watered down or scaled back in provincial Vancouver. Generations later, there was the No Fun Vancouver mind virus that further tried to cancel out things in such a small city with so much red tape and other ridiculous obstacles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451_(1966_film) By the mid and late1960s, the city made sure that its first office tower to have more than 29 floors wouldn't be until the 1970s. Its highly doubtful that Vancouver will have an office tower over 40 stories by 2030. However, Burnaby and Surrey could, because they aren't under the extreme restrictions of Vancouver.
It wasn't until 1973 when Vancouver allowed its first building to be taller than the Los_Angeles_City_Hall. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_City_Hall
The Scotia_Tower (stump) is a good reference point to visualize the small scale of backwater Vancouver, as its about the same height as the Los_Angeles_City_Hall at 453'.
https://www.skyscrapercenter.com/building/scotia-tower/4396 453'
https://skyscraperpage.com/b65/vancouver/the-scotia-tower 452'
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451_(2018_film) By 2018 it was quite apparent that Vancouver was in the process of allowing for more buildings over 450 feet. However, nothing has been permitted to reach 700 feet, so far. A tower over 1000 feet would help to water down its provincial mindset.
_(cropped).jpg/3840px-Vancouver_panorama_(49988799796)_(cropped).jpg)
SF, Sydney & Auckland are just as scenic as Vancouver & warmer throughout the year. They all have taller building than what Vancouver currently permits. Seattle is just as scenic as Vancouver, but its allowed to function like a proper big city, because it doesn't have the imposed restrictions like Vancouver has. While its cold, damp & depressing like Vancouver during the fall & winter, Seattle usually gets noticeably hotter summers than Vancouver, BC. The tallest building in Seattle is the 76 story B of A office tower.
Everything is so small or scaled back in Vancouver. Even the Greater Vancouver mountains aren't allowed to be as tall as the ones in L.A. While the San_Francisco_Bay & Port_Phillip Bay by Melbourne are big next to their cities, English_Bay in_Vancouver is so much smaller. Its even smaller than Elliott_Bay by Seattle.
Vancouver really needs to have bus and HOV bridges built next to its mostly narrow & congested bridges. Only a 5 car Skytrain is the max on the first 2 lines and ultimately, just a 2.5 car joke of a train on the YVR-Canada Line.
Selective+Door+Operation can allow a short train to have an extra car at each end, despite a shorter platform.
.jpg/3840px-Vancouver_sunset_(J).jpg)
Australia like the USA, has some big & tall cities on the Pacific Rim. However, Vancouver symbolically kept watering down its size, because that's how you demonstrate a reluctance towards proper urban planning & growth.
Oddly enough, the small scale Vancouver mentality & agenda wasn't adopted by most cities around the world. Officially, there is no Vancouver Mind Virus (VMV), but somehow it keeps manifesting, just like the BCMV.
Despite its size, Canada has less than 1% of the worlds population.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/550_Madison_Avenue This building has almost become a stump when compared to the much taller towers.
https://buildingsdb.com/NY/new-york/550-madison-avenue/
https://www.archdaily.com/611169/ad-classics-at-and-t-building-philip-johnson-and-john-burgee
https://www.lera.com/sony-building This would be the 2nd tallest building if it was in Vancouver, in overall height.
https://www.archiweb.cz/en/b/at-t-building-sony-plaza
https://paulpiazzaarchitect.com/home/2014/09/20/the-sony-tower/
https://www.reddit.com/r/ReplicaBuildings/comments/17d39eg/550_madison_att_building_1984_nyc/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJqr-6j3yww This would be an impressive building if it was in Victoria, Kelowna, Kamloops or Prince George. Even in Lethbridge and Spokane, but not in Calgary or Seattle. That's because they been allowed to be proper big cities.
Its not even 25 stories, just like the Post office complex, but if it had at least 50 floors it would have been quite an impressive office tower for BC.
https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/1jav5f9/burnaby_approves_bc_tel_boot_redevelopment_5/ Acording to this rendering, the main part of the Telus boot stump will still be around. Its only a smaller part of its base that will face demolition.
https://www.jarmanrealestate.com/burnaby-telus-boot-redevelopment/
Burnaby or Surrey will likely have the first office tower in BC that's at least 45 stories in the next few years. Vancouver won't permit any office tower to have a 40th floor.
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/3696-kingsway-vancouver-telus-rental-housing-tower Across the street, not a 50, only a 25 story residential stump.
Boundary Road should have already had an express bus service and eventually a rapid bus route connecting Burnaby to North Vancouver and Richmond. Unfortunately, Vancouver still doesn't seem interested in having a B.Rd. bridge to NV and Richmond, even if it would improve on regional transportation.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/trifecta
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trifecta#History
Ideally, for some small thinking cities, the plan is to symbolically have mostly short buildings and short trains and mostly narrow bridges.
That seems to have been the goal of Vancouver over the past several decades. In contrast, Brisbane after its Expo 88, was able to really go into big city planning mode, because it doesn't have anything like the excessive Vancouver restrictions holding it back.
1 The+Typical+Vancouver+Size+Stump+Building No office tower has been permitted to have a 40th floor. https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=The+Stumpy+Post+building+in+Vancouver Never-mind 40 or 50 stories, it wasn't even allowed to have 25 floors.
2 YVR-Canada+Line A 2 car joke of a train.
3 Lions+Gate+Bridge A 3 lane joke of a bridge.
https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=backwards+Vancouver
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARO_(building)
"ARO is a 62-story, 700-foot-tall (210 m) glass tower with a steel lattice exterior." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARO_(building)#Architecture 210 m vs 150 m
"Calgary House, (formerly known as TELUS Sky) is a 60-storey, 222.3 m (729 ft)" tower. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telus_Sky 222 vs 150 m
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quay_Quarter_Tower "The AMP Centre re-opened as Quay Quarter Tower in early 2022, and stands at a height of 216 metres (709 ft) with 54 floors." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quay_Quarter_Tower#AMP_Centre 216 m vs 150 m.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver_House Another Vancouver stump under 500' vs. 700' and 729'.
| Height | |
|---|---|
| Architectural | 150.3 m (493 ft)[1] |
| Technical details | |
| Material | Concrete |
| Floor count | 49 |
| Floor area | 60,670 square metres (653,046 sq ft) |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vancouver_House#Design Only 150 m.
As usual, things must always be scaled back or watered down in small, rainy Vancouver.
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/homewood-suites-hilton-surrey-health-technology-district
What should have been at least a 65 story tower, or at least 50, is just another 25 story BC stump building.
https://engage.surrey.ca/city-centre-plan
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/city-centre-4-office-tower-surrey-lark-group
https://www.citycentredistrict.com/
https://storeys.com/surrey-centre-block-office-tower While Vancouver still won't permit any office tower to have a 50 floor, Surrey had a chance to have the first 50 story office tower in BC. Now, it might only be 45 stories.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eI9WJa9Q8dA
Of course many large urban areas around the world have more than 1 or 2 skylines or tower clusters.
For the longest time, no building in Vancouver or BC, was allowed to be as tall as the 1930s CIBC tower, which is now a stump.
https://www.blogto.com/city/2017/05/toronto-lost-observation-deck-commerce-court-north/
https://www.torontojourney416.com/canadian-bank-of-commerce-building/
https://www.25king.ca/the-history
It wasn't until the early 1970s when stumpy, Vancouver allowed a building to be taller than the L.A. City Hall, or the Smith Tower in Seattle.
The 1930s CIBC tower, the L.A. City Hall and the Smith Tower, would still be prominent towers in Vancouver, but stumps in their own cities.
Despite Vancouver being divided by an inlet and a river, the city wasn't able to build a huge wall along Boundary Road. Thus, the KEEP THEM OUT agenda was a little thwarted. The various White city councils tried to do the next best thing. That was to symbolically impose various restrictions as a reluctance to think, plan and build on a BIG city scale. The time especially from 1960 to 2000 had predominantly White City Hall and its councils continually impose several overlapping restrictions.
Since Vancouver can't control immigration or the movements of non-white people, keeping things small and backwards, means that less people will move there than to Toronto, Montreal, Calgary and Edmonton. However, with a mild winter climate, more and more people want to move to backwards BC, especially small-minded Vancouver and provincial Victoria.
In spite of immigration and Multiculturalism, Vancouver was to perpetually promote its small scale agenda.
While the first Skytrain line can finally run 5 car trains, the stations weren't designed to become long enough to eventually accomodate 9 car trains like the big city Montreal Metro has.
The 2nd and 3rd Skytrain lines are still only running 2 car joke trains. Running 8-10 car trains is what a proper big city would do, but not backwards Vancouver.
Narrow bridges provides strong symbolism of the cities narrow-mindedness. When bridges are too narrow, its difficult to have a proper express or rapid bus system. The reluctance to build parallel bus and HOV bridges helps to maintain the congestive planning approach that is vancouver and the Greater Region.
Vancouver's refusal to build parallel bike bridges has meant that 2 lanes were removed from the Burrard Bridge, 1 lane from the Cambie Bridge and 2 lanes from the Granville Bridge.
Keeping buildings symbolically short when compared to what scenic Sydney, Auckland, SF and Seattle allow, also helps to maintain Vancouver's reluctance to enter the big and tall urban scale. In fact, the scenic setting that Vancouver is in has been used as the main excuse to continually scale the city down. Yet, several scenic cities around the world are either able to have wider bridges, wider roads, longer trains or taller buildings.
The world is mostly composed of non-white people. Canada has less than 1% of the world's population and stubborn Vancouver symbolically remains as a small provincial backwater on the Pacific Rim.
https://centralparktower.com.au Unlike Perth, Vancouver forbids 50 story office towers and Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne size residential towers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/108_St_Georges_Terrace In fact, no office building in Vancouver has been permitted to have a 40th floor. However, since Burnaby and Surrey aren't under the restrictive controls of Vancouver, they will eventually allow office towers over 40 stories.
Despite Australia having less people than Canada, Perth is allowed to have taller buildings, wider bridges and longer trains than Vancouver. Taller buildings, wider bridges and longer trains are even less likely in Halifax than whats in Brisbane or Queensland.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q1_(building) To see buildings on a similar scale of what Brisbane allows, one has to get to Greater Toronto. Brisbane is allowed to have some buildings that would even be impressive in Melbourne and Sydney.
While Montreal is allowed to have taller buildings than Vancouver, Montreal isn't allowed to have Sydney size towers. Especially not on the scale of what Melbourne and Toronto permit.
Over the decades, Vancouver planners have ingeniously used shadow restrictions to hold back the scale of the city. Vancouver is cold, dark and depressing for half of the year. Even a 10-20 story stump can cast a shadow. However, when summer does return every year, some people like to have more shade from buildings and trees.
https://vancouversun.com/news/quadreal-sells-the-post-heritage-building-vancouver This stump building+complex doesn't even have 26 floors. It's not much taller than this 22 story stump in LA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_National_Plaza This was the first office complex to rise over 50 floors in LA.
https://skyscraperpage.com/cities/?buildingID=2301 52 stories opened in 1972.
https://www.skyscrapercenter.com/building/city-national-tower/1395
LA and then Calgary were able to have a double tower complex of over 50 floors, but Vancouver just has a double stump thats not even 25 floors.
https://www.brookfieldproperties.com/en/our-properties/bankers-hall-west-175 47 stories
https://skyscraperpage.com/cities/?buildingID=6993 1989
https://skyscraperpage.com/cities/?buildingID=7073 2000
52 floors in total.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bankers_Hall_Towers_%281%29_%288068206826%29.jpg
https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=The+Post+building+complex
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/the-post-amazon-vancouver-quadreal-pontegadea-acquisition
This stump building+complex isn't even 26 floors.
It's so incredibly small when compared to what big cities allow.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bankers_Hall 52 stories in Calgary.
https://www.stockaerialphotos.com/-/galleries/cities/calgary/-/medias/a1d07eb9-561e-4f75-9235-64c07d7320ee-penn-west-plaza-calgary The Post isn't that much higher than this stump in Calgary. https://www.stockaerialphotos.com/media/8e457764-fd2f-4e0c-9944-09fc86185f5d-penn-west-plaza-i-and-ii
https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=The+Post+building+complex
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CN_Tower
.jpg/960px-A_look_downtown_(759827996).jpg)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Canadian_Place The BMO. Unlike Chicago, Toronto has no 100 story office towers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bentall_Centre_(Vancouver)#Three_Bentall_Centre A 32 story BC office stump.
Being from small Vancouver, its amazing that Canada even has one megacity. Toronto is certainly a big city on a lakeshore like Chicago is. Montreal isn't allowed to have buildings as tall as Melbourne, let alone NYC. Montreal has allowed only one office tower to be over 50 floors and a few residential towers in the 60s.
Calgary has more 50+ story office towers than Denver and Perth. No 40 story office tower exists in BC. The office section of the Harbour_Centre doesn't even have a 30th floor and the revolving restaurant is closer to being like 35 floors up. However, with the overall building being 481 feet, it would be equivalent to 40 floors, if the windows went right up to the top. The flagpole has no windows, but the flag would be like the equivalent of being 48 floors up.
Not just Toronto & Montreal, but Edmonton and Seattle have longer underground train stations than backwards, congested Vancouver.
The Iron+Bridge, Oak+Street+Bridge, Knight+Street+Bridge & the Arthur+Laing+Bridge should all have a bus+and+bike bridge built next to them. The extremely inadequate Lion+Bridge should have already had a bus and train tunnel close to it.
The proposed 27-storey hotel tower at the edge of Stanley Park is drawing pushback from West End residents over its scale https://vancouversun.com/news/proposed-west-end-tower-that-aims-to-fill-vancouvers-hotel-shortage Parking lots and almost delapadeted buildings should be selected first. This building still seems to be in reasonable shape.
https://www.biv.com/news/real-estate/vancouver-needs-10k-more-hotel-rooms-says-report-10508458
https://vancouversun.com/news/vancouver-major-hotel-policy-overhaul-room-shortage
Lots of people in some parts of the West_End end are still accustomed to stumpy buildings, despite the very high land costs.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b0/Vancouver-stanley-park.jpg/960px-Vancouver-stanley-park.jpg Many other cities aren't afraid to build tall close to the water or parks.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4c/Vancouver_west_end.jpg/960px-Vancouver_west_end.jpg People shouldn't be displace just becaus of a new development. An agreement should be reached so that they can still remain in the new structure. However, it's the height issue that usually keeps popping up. A lot of people that still remember Vancouver as a provincial backwater of a city want it to remain that way for as long as possible.
https://www.shapeyourcity.ca/2030-2038-barclay-st , https://stop2030barclay.ca
https://henriquezpartners.com/projects/2030-barclay The height proposal is at lest a dozen floors too short, it should be about 20 stories taller.
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/2030-barclay-street-vancouver-stanley-park-hotel-tower
https://storeys.com/marcon-barclay-street-vancouver-hotel The issue here is that a lot of people don't want a stump replaced with an atempt of a taller building. The people that live there should have the option to live in the new building. If the city and the developer could reach an agreement to allow the current residents to move into the lower floors of the tower. Then remain there at a reasonable rental rate for as long as they want. Then eventually after all the former residents have moved on or passed on, the lower floors could be repurposed into hotel rooms. If a developer in such a situation could agree to that, then the city should allow them to build 15-20 floors higher than 27 stories.
That gets back to the height restriction issue in Vancouver. Other cities have allowed tall buildings right up to the edge of a park. It seems that no one from Vancouver was able to ever stop Sydney. Rather, the Vancouver Mind Virus (VMV) never made it there to thwart big, bustling Sydney.
.jpg/960px-Global_Citizen_Festival_Central_Park_New_York_City_from_NYonAir_(15351915006).jpg)
Fortunately, Sydney, Melbourne, SF and Toronto were never under anything like a Vancouverization agenda. Somehow that backwards mentality was never adopted in most real cities.
https://bcbusiness.ca/industries/real-estate/land-values-how-the-hotel-shortage-in-vancouver-is-coinciding-with-a-boom-in-tourism The BC Mind Virus is so firmly entrenched that its still very difficult to properly upgrade things.
https://streets.mn/2017/12/01/twenty-urbanist-observations-from-a-trip-to-winnipeg
If you are from narrow-minded Vancouver, you might be amazed as to how wide some of the streets are in Downtown_Winnipeg.
https://www.tourismwinnipeg.com/plan-your-trip/neighbourhoods/display,neighbourhood/5/downtown
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/300_Main_(Winnipeg) "Standing at 141.7 metres and 42 storeys, it is the tallest building in Winnipeg as well as in Manitoba."
https://skyscraperpage.com/cities/?buildingID=108830 466 feet.
https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?cityID=58&status=15
It took several decades for Winnipeg to finally have a building taller than the Foshay_Tower in Minneapolis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foshay_Tower "It has 32 floors and stands 447 feet (136 m) high..."
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d3/Foshay_Tower_Highsmith.jpg/500px-Foshay_Tower_Highsmith.jpg While the Foshay Tower would be like the 2nd tallest building in Winnipeg, it's become a stump in Minneapolis.
https://versus.com/en/minneapolis-vs-winnipeg Greater M might have 4 million people before Greater W has even 1 million people.
https://worldmeasure.com/cities/minneapolis-usa/compare/winnipeg-can
https://www.skyscrapercenter.com/building/scotia-tower/4396 138 m / 453 ft with 35 floors
https://www.skydb.net/building/134544260/scotia-tower-vancouver Height 138 m (452 ft) Floors 35
https://skyscraperpage.com/cities/?buildingID=65 452 feet https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?searchID=110142950&page=3
https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?cityID=1
https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?cityID=1&status=15
Despite The Scotia Tower in Vancouver opening in 1977, it's still a prominent, but small building on the skyline. The windows only go up to the 34th floor, where as the windows on the real Scotia Tower in Toronto go up to the 68th floor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotia_Tower Opened in 1977 with 34 floors, plus 2 windowless levels and at least 2 underground floors. Given its prominence on the skyline, the city would not permit it to have a 40th floor.
https://www.reddit.com/r/skyscrapers/comments/1nsu0xw/will_tribune_east_tower_chicago_be_built
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribune_East_Tower 1,442 ft (439.5 m) 113 floors.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribune_Tower 1925
A 463-foot-tall (141 m), 36-floor building. Today, it's just another old Chicago size stump, but in if it was in Vancouver, it would still be an impressively tall tower.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribune_Tower#Architecture
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/07/06/tribune-tower-100-years-chicago-magnificent-mile Even a centuray later, this would be one of the tallest office towers in backwater BC.
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/burnaby-height-based-development-framework
Fortunately, Vancouver can't stunt and stump Burnaby anymore than it could with Parramatta, NSW. Vancouver is trying its darndest to prevent any buildings from rising above 200 m. Unlike Vancouver, Burnaby doesn't try to look for any excuse to hold its city back.
https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=building+shadowing+policies
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgejGeLwrj4
The Space_Needle became an instant Seattle landmark since the early 1960s. The same for the Calgary_Tower by the late 1960s.
https://www.spaceneedle.com , https://www.calgarytower.com
Both were possible, because Seattle & Calgary aren't under anything like Vancouver's imposed restrictions.
The H._R._MacMillan_Space_Centre opened in October 1968, some 4 months after the Calgary Tower & 6.5 years after the Space Needle. Of course Vancouver was behind, as usual. The first thing that you notice is that there is no tower. It's a classic stump of a building.
https://thecdm.ca/partners/industry/the-hr-macmillan-space-centre
https://www.spacecentre.ca/celebrating-55-years
https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/qhnz76/tbt_vancouver_planetarium_1968
The movie Final_Destination_Bloodlines provides a CGI depiction of what an actual tower, not a stump would look like. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Destination_Bloodlines#Plot
While Final_Destination_Bloodlines was filmed in Vancouver, it was set in New York State.
Something peculiar happened in Seattle in 2025.
https://people.com/space-needle-crack-glass-floor-absolutely-safe-11770526
https://wrif.com/2025/07/08/crack-space-needle-glass-floor/
https://cryptogmail.com/is-the-space-needles-glass-floor-cracking-heres-the-real-story/
Final Destination: Bloodlines Movie Clip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iQhOmebDqo
https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=Seattle
https://www.skyscrapercenter.com/vancouver/401-west-georgia/25079 This could have been a nice slender 50 story tower, but instead its just a 22 story stump.
https://www.biv.com/news/real-estate/institutions-flirt-with-premium-offices-in-vancouver-10691979
