https://vancouver.ca/news-calendar/help-shape-tall-buildings-may-2026.aspx
https://globalnews.ca/video/11827046/vancouver-tall-building-policy-review/
Showing posts sorted by date for query tall buildings in downtown Vancouver. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query tall buildings in downtown Vancouver. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Friday, May 1, 2026
The future of tall buildings in downtown Vancouver
Monday, September 29, 2025
Vancouver buildings over 152.4 meters or 500 feet
It took a very long time for Vancouver to have its first building permitted to rise over 500 feet in height.
152.4 meters = 500 feet and 150 meters = 492.12 feet
https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?cityID=1
https://www.straight.com/article-371138/vancouver/city-approves-new-policy-taller-buildings-downtown-vancouver While there are some taller resedential towers, Vancouver still has no office tower with at least a 40th floor. Portland,_Oregon has 2. Perth, WA has 2 office towers with at least 50 floors. The_Bow tower in Calgary has 60 floors, when you count all the levels. The Columbia_Center in Seattle has 80 floors in total.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_Vancouver#Cityscape
450 feet is equal to about 137.16 meters and that was the height restriction imposed on Vancouver for most of its restrictive, red-tape history.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_Vancouver
The powers that be tried their damndest to not allow most Vancouver buildings to be taller than the Smith_Tower, Commerce_Court_North and the Los_Angeles_City_Hall until after the year 2000. Of course in 2025 those buildings are like stumps now, but would still be tall by small Vancouver standards.
https://skyscraperpage.com/cities/?buildingID=6965 , https://www.smithtower.com/about/
https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?cityID=27&searchname=timeline
https://beautifulwashington.com/king-county/attractions/seattle/448-sky-view-observatory.html
https://www.seattletimes.com/life/heres-a-cheap-way-to-view-seattles-skyline-coffee-at-the-starbucks-on-the-40th-floor-of-the-columbia-tower The 40th floor of an 80 story building, when you count the mechanical or plant floors as well. Perhaps some day strict Vancouver might permit an office building to have a 40th floor.
https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?cityID=1&status=15
stumps and towers
Thursday, March 6, 2025
Future of London Drugs at Woodward's uncertain due to crime area
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/london-drugs-woodwards-vancouver-crime-theft-shoplifting
The old Woodward's_Building used to be in the old part of downtown. Then by the time of its redevelopment, the area was starting to decline.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodward's_Building#Redevelopment
Without an adequate amount of police patrols & security, a business area can easily decline. A lot of the crime & poverty is as a result of various socio-economic issues.
No building in strict Vancouver is allowed to be as tall as the new Hudson's_in_Detroit. Short and stumpy Vancouver buildings just can't attain the same scale of a Hudson's_Site.
The tallest part of the new Woodward's complex wasn't even allowed to be as tall as the old Hudson's in Detroit. That's because unlike Detroit, almost everything in Vancouver is watered down in scale.
Detroit has had a rough & tough reputation for generations, yet its been able to gradually recover from its economic slide.
Of course the QLine streetcar in Detroit was up & running long before Vancouver might ever get around to reviving part of its streetcar network. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QLine#Route Backwards Vancouver just might become one of the last cities to revive parts of its streetcar system.
Tuesday, December 31, 2024
Los Angeles City Hall (454 ft or 138 m)
The LA_City_Hall should have been at least 500' tall, but it's only 454'. That still makes the Los_Angeles_City_Hall one of the taller ones around the planet, but it's become a stump of a building in downtown L.A.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_City_Hall#History "...was completed in 1928. Dedication ceremonies were held on April 26, 1928. It has 32 floors and, at 454 feet (138 m) high."
"A City Council ordinance passed in 1905 did not permit any new construction to be taller than 13 stories or 150 ft (46 m) in order to keep the city's architecture harmonious. City Hall's 454 ft (138 m) height was deemed exempt as a public building and assured that no building would surpass one third its height for over three decades until the ordinance was repealed by voter referendum in 1957.[9] Therefore, from its completion in 1928 until finally surpassed by the topping off of Union Bank Plaza in 1966, City Hall was the tallest building in Los Angeles..."
https://laist.com/news/entertainment/city-hall-tall Not 451 feet, but 454 feet, because there was no F 451 novel yet. The 454' LA City Hall was like an unofficial F-you to the taller buildings in NYC and Chicago. Perhaps even Metropolis_(1927_film). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolis_(1927_film)#Influences
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_K._Dick PKD was born in 1928, the same year that the LA City Hall opened.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451 "The writing and theme within Fahrenheit 451 was explored by Bradbury in some of his previous short stories. Between 1947 and 1948, Bradbury wrote "Bright Phoenix", a short story about a librarian who confronts a "Chief Censor", who burns books. An encounter Bradbury had in 1949 with the police inspired him to write the short story "The Pedestrian" in 1951. In "The Pedestrian", a man going for a nighttime walk in his neighborhood is harassed and detained by the police. In the society of "The Pedestrian", citizens are expected to watch television as a leisurely activity, a detail that would be included in Fahrenheit 451. Elements of both "Bright Phoenix" and "The Pedestrian" would be combined into The Fireman, a novella published in Galaxy Science Fiction in 1951. Bradbury was urged by Stanley Kauffmann, an editor at Ballantine Books, to make The Fireman into a full novel. Bradbury finished the manuscript for Fahrenheit 451 in 1953, and the novel was published later that year." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahrenheit_451#Title
https://laist.com/news/entertainment/city-hall-tall From 2016.
The agenda to not permit any building in LA to be taller than City Hall was the case for several decades. Even Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane & Perth weren't allowed to have buildings taller than the LA_City_Hall for a long time. Of course it took until the early 1970s for Vancouver to allow a building to be a little taller than the LA_City_Hall.
City Hall is really like a stump on the modern LA skyline. It can easily be obscured by the taller towers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_Los_Angeles#Tallest_buildings
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Bank_Plaza Completed in 1968.
| Roof | 157.28 m (516.0 ft) |
|---|---|
| Technical details | |
| Floor count | 40 |
| Floor area | 68,525 m2 (737,600 sq ft) |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Bank_Plaza#History Not only the first building permitted in LA to be over 500 feet, but having at least a 40th floor.
Just as LA got its first 40 story building in 1968, PKD had a book out in the same year. Do_Androids_Dream_of_Electric_Sheep?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_Androids_Dream_of_Electric_Sheep?#Plot
https://medium.com/@ejasp2/metropolis-v-s-blade-runner-1982-871baea0eea0
https://www.bartleby.com/essay/Comparison-between-Metropolis-and-Blade-Runner-P3JDKCLEC8BRS#
While Philip_K._Dick set E. Sheep in SF, Blade_Runner was set in LA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_Runner#Production
Tuesday, December 24, 2024
611 Place in L.A. and Place Ville Marie, Montreal
https://calisphere.org/item/c808aa829349df0b62b97853207d216f
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/Boulevard_Ren%C3%A9-L%C3%A9vesque.JPG Unlike narrowminded Vancover, Montreal has allowed for some tall wide buildings and even some wide streets or boulevards. Wide streets can allow for better accomodation of bus & bike lanes. The Vancouver approach is to try to cram everything into 4 lanes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/611_Place Its a 42-story, 189 m (620 ft) skyscraper at 611 West 6th Street in Downtown Los Angeles. It was completed in 1969, some 7 years after PVM in Montreal. 611 Place is a few feet higher or a meter taller, but PVM is much wider building. It would take until the early 21st century before strict Vancouver would permit a building to rival their height.
PVM:
https://mtltimes.ca/business/have-a-look-at-the-changes-on-the-45th-and-46th-floor-of-place-ville-marie The building is equvalent to a 51_story tower, but the main widowed floors stop at 46. Some of the floors and of course the roof, have no windows, as they are mechanical or building plant operation levels.
Although it's not quite the tallest in Montreal, PVM is the tallest wide building in Quebec. It really should have been in the 55-60 story range, but Montreal wasn't ready for a big, bulky NYC office tower on the scale of 28_Liberty_Street or the MetLife_Building. Montreal has some view corridor restrictions, which prevent it to rival the tallest buildings in Austin Texas. However, Montreal is still allowed to have taller buildings than stumpy Vancouver.
"This widening to 8 lanes was requested by the real estate developer planning the construction of Place Ville-Marie . This urban gesture allowed the arrival of several tall buildings, especially in the city center. It is without a doubt the boulevard of skyscrapers since it is on this artery that the largest buildings in Montreal and Quebec are located."
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boulevard_Ren%C3%A9-L%C3%A9vesque_(Montr%C3%A9al)#Historique
https://skyscraperpage.com/cities/?buildingID=4904 20F 72m/237' https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?searchID=107855260&offset=25 It opened in 1968.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/be/(former)_World_Trade_Center_in_New_Orleans.jpg
https://montrealjemesouviens.blogspot.com/2012/07/place-ville-marie.html
https://www.voirvert.ca/projets/projet-etude/ecologisation-place-ville-marie
https://www.pcf-p.com/projects/place-ville-marie PVM opened in 1962 & 6 years later, 777-Hornby a stump building in Vancouver with a similar shape, wasn't even allowed to have half as many floors as PVM. However, it would be an impressive building compared to what's in Victoria-Prince+George-Kamloops, but not most real cities.
https://pcfandtypecodewebstuff.s3.amazonaws.com/images/2.lin.PCF.5503_plan-section.max-1600x1600.jpg
https://skyscraperpage.com/cities/?buildingID=937 43, 46 or 50F. 188m/617' https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?searchID=107855813&offset=75
https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/staticmap?size=375x375&zoom=18¢er=45.501488%2C-73.568466&maptype=satellite&key=AIzaSyCNedHKUJhos7_OH_zp9Xtyw-eV8ylf-78 The Montreal tower.
https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/staticmap?size=375x375&zoom=18¢er=49.282982%2C-123.121780&maptype=satellite&key=AIzaSyCNedHKUJhos7_OH_zp9Xtyw-eV8ylf-78 The watered down Vancouver version is just a stump by comparison.
| 777 Hornby Street Vancouver BC Canada |
https://www.cityfeet.com/cont/listing/777-hornby-st-vancouver-bc-v6z-1s4/cs4415499
"777 Hornby is a 20 storey office, retail and parking complex strategically located at the corner of Hornby Street and Robson Street within walking distance of Vancouver's many amenities and top restaurants." https://www.777hornby.com
The former World_Trade_Center_in_New_Orleans was converted to a 34 story hotel. The building was first completed in 1967 as a 33 story, 407 feet (124 m) structure.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Seasons_Hotel_and_Private_Residences_New_Orleans
Tuesday, November 26, 2024
Calgary vs. Edmonton
https://dailyhive.com/calgary/alberta-calgary-edmonton-real-estate-buy-homes
Calgary has a lot more tall buildings.
https://www.calgary.com/blog/calgary-vs-edmonton-ab
Edmonton has a cool downtown LRT subway.
Of course having the tallest skyscrapers & the longest subway stations in Western_Canada doesn't matter to a lot of people.
If you are from Calgary & visit Vancouver, you will be surprised as to how small most of the buildings are in Vancouver. If you are visiting from Edmonton, you will be surprised to see how much shorter the underground SkyTrain stations are when compared to the downtown LRT subway in Edmonton.
If you are from Edmonton, you will be surprised to see how small backwater Victoria, BC is, despite it being in a mild winter climate. Edmonton isn't just a mighty provincial Capital, it's almost on the same urban scale as Perth, WA. That's despite Edmonton being in a very cold winter climate zone.
Fortunately, BC was never able to gobble up Alberta, or strongly influence it. BC stopped a huge destination mall from being built in the 1980s. However, BC wasn't able to stop the West_Edmonton_Mall from being built.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Edmonton_Mall#West_Edmonton_Mall_Transit_Centre
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valley_Line_(Edmonton)#Valley_Line_West_(under_construction)
.svg/630px-ETS_LRT_System_(long-term).svg.png)
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a3/ETS_LRT_System_%28long-term%29.svg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmonton_LRT#Overview_of_planned_lines
https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=Edmonton
Friday, March 29, 2024
Hilton Hotel with nearly 400 rooms to be built at future Oak-VGH SkyTrain station
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/hilton-hotel-888-west-broadway-vancouver
This is part of the southern extension of downtown Vancouver, yet it has to be shorter than the 103 m, 340 ft Old_City_Hall_in_Toronto. Even shorter than the 92 m (302 ft) Brisbane_City_Hall. Those are both little buildings by today's standards. Yet, in certain parts of the Vancouver core, they would be consider to be too tall. It even has to be shorter than the 245 ft (75 m) King_Street_Station in Seattle. Fortunately, these 3 cities will never be Vancouverized. This, keep Vancouver small & stunted mentality really sucks, but it's all part of the KEEP THEM OUT agenda.
Such restrictive & congestive planning helps Vancouver & BC maintain, the keep it small symbolic approach to things.
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