Well, Vancouver still isn't allowing any residential tower to rival the tallest in Edmonton, Calgary & Seattle. BC is 75% mountainous yet, there are only a handful of potential major urban regions in this backwater wilderness of a province.
Vancouver could get more benefits from developers if there was more incentive to build taller hotels and residential towers, as long as there was a good component of affordable housing.
Despite Vancouver being cold, depressing & damp for half of the year, the urban beaches should be in better shape. Plus, there should be a lot more hotel rooms in the metropolitan region.
Fortunately, other urban beaches around the world realize that it hurts their tourism business if they have crappy beaches.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surfers_Paradise,_Queensland
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surfers_Paradise,_Queensland#Sport_and_recreation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surfers_Paradise,_Queensland#Transport
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami_Beach,_Florida
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunny_Isles_Beach,_Florida
https://www.miamiandbeaches.com/things-to-do/beaches
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waik%C4%ABk%C4%AB
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheraton_Waikiki_Hotel This hotel isn't 64 stories, it only has 32, but it has over 1600 rooms. Vancouver has been very reluctant to have wide buildings like this.
| Number of rooms | 1636 |
|---|---|
| Number of suites | 131 |
| Number of restaurants | 2 |
https://www.cntraveler.com/hotels/united-states/honolulu/hyatt-regency-waikiki-resort---spa Over 1200 rooms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyatt_Regency_Seattle 1260 rooms.
It's been very difficult for Vancouver to think, plan & build on a big scale. Especially, with some of the most restrictive building limits around.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyatt_Regency_Vancouver 650 rooms. Despite not being close to a beach, there should have been a provision to have a 2nd tower next to the Hyatt_Regency_Vancouver. Or, enough space to double the width of the existing building. Or, add about 20 floors to the single hotel tower. If the Royal_Centre complex was always going to just consist of 2 towers, then the office tower & the hotel tower should have been designed to eventually add another 20 stories. Not a problem for Seattle or Calgary, because they are allowed to be proper big cities.
https://www.hyatt.com/hyatt-hotels/en-US/yvrph-hyatt-vancouver-downtown-alberni Only about a quarter of Vancouver's tallest building is a hotel.
Cleaner beaches and more support for tourism would be of great benefit to Vancouver & BC. Especially, for taller & wider hotels, but that's what a big city would do. Vancouver is still a small-minded city that occasionally likes to pretend that its grown up.
https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=Metro+Vancouver+beaches
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/hudsons-bay-parkade-vancouver-redevelopment-holborn-group
Vancouver & even the Lower_Mainland is a small portion of backwater BC.
https://globalnews.ca/news/11170798/new-development-pitched-downtown-vancouver-bc-tallest-tower
Most of BC is mountainous wilderness, there are only a handful of areas in backward BC in which there can be major urban areas.
https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?cityID=1&status=15 Vancouver
https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?countryID=1&status=15 Backwater BC was supposed to always have the smallest buildings, when compared to what Ontario, Quebec & Alberta allows.
https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?stateID=7&status=15 Ontario
https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?stateID=12&status=15 Quebec
https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?stateID=2&status=15 Alberta
https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?stateID=1&status=15 BC
https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?stateID=24&status=15 Washington State
https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?stateID=47&status=15 Western Australia
https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?stateID=14&status=15 California
https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?stateID=1 As of May 2025, there are a few residential towers in the low to mid 60s range. No office tower in BC has a 40th floor.
https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?cityID=2&status=15 While Vancouver won't permit office towers to have a 40th floor, it can't stop Surrey from potentially have a 47 story office tower. https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?cityID=2&status=15
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/lower-twelfth-street-area-study-update-new-westminster-rejection
Given the limited industrial areas within the Greater Vancouver Region, there should be a balance between residential & industrial.
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/columbia-square-new-westminster-edgar-development-plan-approved
However, some parts of NW need more taller towers in order to have much grater urban density.
https://www.newwestcity.ca/transportation/transportation-planning
https://www.newwestcity.ca/planning-building-and-development/roadworks
https://www.newwestcity.ca/transportation/trucks
https://skyscraperpage.com/cities/?buildingID=1097 40floors, 466ft
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riverside_Centre,_Brisbane "Completed in 1986, it contains 40 storeys and rises 146 metres (479 ft) above ground." https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?cityID=170&searchname=timeline , https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?cityID=170&status=15
Brisbane and Perth have a similar looking office tower.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QV1 "QV1 is a 40-storey modernist skyscraper in Perth, Western Australia. Completed in 1991, the 163-metre (535 ft)..."
https://skyscraperpage.com/cities/?buildingID=1263 40 floors, 533ft https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?cityID=168&searchname=timeline
The big question is, will WA ever permit some Gold Coast size resedential towers? https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?cityID=712&status=15
https://skyscraperpage.com/diagrams/?stateID=51&status=15
While cold Canada has a lot more towns that could gradually be expanded into proper cities, the warm coast of WA has tremendous potential for urban growth. Yet, most of the state can or will likely remain undeveloped.
https://www.urbanyvr.com/south-granville-subway-station/
https://thestoriessouthgranville.com/
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/1477-west-broadway-skytrain-south-granville-station-tower-approved
https://storeys.com/gracorp-broadway-south-granville-tower/
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/broadway-plan-vancouver-taller-towers
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/vancouver-building-urban-growth-organic-broadway-plan
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/broadway-plan-redevelopment-tenant-evictions-impact
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/senakw-squamish-first-nation-vancouver-towers-construction-july-2024
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_Vancouver
The tallest buildings in this Vancouver development should have been taller than the tallest building in NW, Burnaby, Coquitlam or Surrey.
https://www.skyscrapercenter.com/building/pier-west-1/30319
178 m / 584 ft https://www.skyscrapercenter.com/complex/3304
Senakw should have had at least 2 or 3 towers much taller than the Living_Shangri-La, the tallest in Vancouver at 200m. Something like the Crown_Sydney scale, is banned in Vancouver, but it's no problem for big thinking cities like Sydney & SF.
| Tip | 271.3 metres (890 ft) |
|---|---|
| Observatory | 250 metres (820 feet) |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Sydney#Approval
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_Vancouver#Tallest_proposed_and_under_construction Most of BC is a backwater wildernes that is unapealling for people, but great for wildlife & vegetation.
The plan was to continually thwart Vancouver, Victoria & Kelowna for as long as possible. That in turn slows down the few key areas of urban grown in BC. NSW & California, just never had the same, KEEP THEM OUT MENTALITY. Thus, they were able to think & properly plan for growth. There seems to be an unwritten rule, that as long as Vancouver can do things which are impressive to Kelowna-Victoria-Prince+George-and-Kamloops, that's good enough.
Sydney, NSW & SF, California just were never under the extreme restrictions that Vancouver has. Plus, Syd & SF haven't been under a multigenerational agenda to keep holding those scenic cities back.
Sydney and SF aren't afraid to build taller next to a bridge, like Vancouver is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_Sydney#Tallest_buildings_(150m+)
"The taller tower, One Rincon Hill South Tower, was completed in 2008 and stands 60 stories and 641 feet (195 m) tall.[A][B] The shorter tower, marketed as Tower Two at One Rincon Hill, was completed in 2014 and reaches a height of 541 feet (165 m) with 50 stories." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Rincon_Hill
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_San_Francisco#Tallest_buildings
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_central_business_district#Transport This is what you are able to do when you aren't bound by the limiting mentality & backward agenda that Vancouver has. For some reason, Vancouver hasn't been able to get established big cities to emulate its congestive & inept planning standards. That's because most major cities want to plan & implement good transportation infrastructure. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco#Public_transportation
Fortunately, Sydney & SF never wanted to take the backwards Vancouver approach to things.
Canada is far off from even containing 1% of the world's human population & BC has yet to have the population of 1 Switzerland. Proper infrastructure planning like in Japan & S. Korea, the UK, CH & Germany, has already been able to accommodate many more people. However, most of the world is non-white & some parts of Canada still want to hold onto the old White British Colonial mentality for as long as possible.
Every city starts out with stumps and several cities eventually have some tall towers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_Brisbane#Timeline_of_tallest_buildings
https://mapfight.xyz/compare/queensland-vs-us.fl
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_Brisbane
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brisbane_Square At 151 m (495 ft) it's just another Vancouver like stump, especially, AMP_Place.
Queensland & especially Florida have grown substantially over the decades. A year round warm climate is certainly part of the big attraction. Something that Canada just doesn't have.
The Southeast_Financial_Center and One_Biscayne_Tower in Miami.
One_Biscayne_Tower contains 39 floors and is 492 ft (150 m) tall. Today it's just another Vancouver stump size building in downtown_Miami.
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/3805-3919-nanaimo-street-vancouver-coromandel-bc-government-housing
Proper big planning should have been implemented at least a few decades ago. Now people have finally been bought out so that denser housing can be put in.
https://vancouver.ca/home-property-development/grandview-woodland-community-plan.aspx
The Broadway Station area remains a constipated mess. Stubborn people refuse to accept or be bought out, because NIMBY is the perpetual way to be in BC. Nevermind a magnificent 80 story tower, even 40 floors is too much for this constipated part of Vancouver.
The intersection of 2 Skytrain lines, but no Brentwood size towers.
The trench or cut at Commercial_and_Broadway could easily be covered over, so that big towers can go up. However, the constipated NIMBYs refuse to receive an urban enema & be pushed out. They don't want growth, because that means more non-white people in their neighborhood. But as long as they don't set up a bunch of KEEP THEM OUT signs, their agenda remains strong.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial%E2%80%93Broadway_station
https://www.translink.ca/schedules-and-maps/station/commercial-broadway/map
Vancouver & the metropolitan region remains very stunted when compared to Toronto & Montreal. At least Burnaby, Coquitlam & Surrey are starting to allow a larger scale.
https://ville.montreal.qc.ca/portal/page?_dad=portal&_pageid=2762,3101387&_schema=PORTAL
1000_de_La_Gauchetiere has 51 floors. No other office building in Montreal has ever been permitted to reach 50 stories.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_Montreal#Tallest_buildings
Montreal still has some taller buildings than Vancouver. However, both cities remain vertically stunted when compared to what's permitted in Melbourne, Toronto & Calgary.
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/vancouver-view-cone-impacts-broadway-plan-cambie-street
https://storeys.com/james-cheng-the-stack-vancouver No office building in Vancouver has ever been allowed to have a 40th floor. The tallest nonresidential towers are in the 35 to 37 storey range.
https://macleans.ca/culture/building-vancouver-stack-work-life-balance/
https://therabbitportal.blogspot.com/search?q=Building+Height+Restrictions
https://globalnews.ca/news/9990941/vancouver-view-cone-review
Toronto, Calgary & Edmonton are allowed to build taller than what's in Montreal. Of course stubborn watered down Vancouver is an exception.
Vancouver & BC was unable to build a wall or generate a forcefield around it like something out of STAR TREK. Thus, a stunted approach was implemented, which was all about slowing down the influx of people. Vancouver doesn't have the authority to restrict Canadian immigration or restrict people from moving into the region from other parts of Canada.
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/vancouver-view-cones-review-housing-impacts-motion
At a certain point, the BC part of Canada will be forced to put more money into proper size infrastructure.
https://vancouver.ca/home-property-development/protecting-vancouvers-views.aspx This has been such an ingenious way to hold the city back. So much of BC is mountainous wilderness that will never be blocked out.
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/vancouver-view-cone-restrictions-policies
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/vancouvers-shrinking-skyline Fortunatly, Vancouver doesn't have control over the entire region, so the demand for taller buildings is still possible in the surrounding area.
So many urban restrictions were put into Vancouver during the 1970s, 80s and 90s by a mostly White power structure. In theory, if a city & urban area is continually stunted like Greater Vancouver, then less people will be likely to move there. Calgary & Seattle were never under anything like the extreme Vancouver limitations. Thus, those cities have much taller buildings, wider roads & bridges & any of their underground train stations are much longer than what Vancouver has ever built. The Toronto Subway & the Montreal Metro have stations that are at least 152m or about 500 feet, when stunted Vancouver only built 50m to 80m Skytrain stations.
If Vancouver was ever allowed to become a big city & region like Sydney, San_Francisco & Montreal, that would mean accommodating more people of color. It's not that the predominantly White power structure of the 1970s, 80s and 90s officially had a, KEEP THEM OUT agenda, but any slow growth initiative can certainly slow down the influx of people & the local economy.
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/vancouver-tower-building-shadowing-solar-access
Indeed, by continually promoting a half size approach to such stunted infrastructure, it shows a reluctance towards accommodating more people. As it so happens, most of the people on the planet aren't of European descent. Thus, anly slow growth initiative is a very clever way to, KEEP PEOPLE OUT. Unfortunately, even if there is finally enough people that want Vancouver & other parts of BC to have big cities, there is quite a tangled mess of laws, ordinances & restrictions that would have to be changed.
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/larwill-park-office-towers-vancouver-concept
One would think that especially for a region such as Greater Vancouver with so many narrow roads & streets, there should have been a metro on the scale of what Montreal has. But so much about Vancouver & BC is about congestive planning.
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/translink-2017-kevin-desmond-canada-line-built-skytrain Why build 152m long stations linke in Montreal & Toronto when you can build absurd 50m stations? This is a fine example of the reluctance to build without allowing for future expansion. Don't think like a big city or urban region where a train could eventually reach the ferry terminals. It's much better to take the congestion approach.
https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=building+shadowing+policies
https://jfdatalinks.blogspot.com/search?q=SkyTrain-Canada+Line
https://vancouversun.com/business/real-estate/tall-towers-vancouver-burnaby-surrey-coquitlam
Tall only by backwater BC standards, when compared to several other urban regions around the world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_UatSgangE van
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9d0hwH2kQEM cal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qv9mVN4QJKk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97H7dO3Q8JE tor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p84Sg4AKSlI mon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kmdq631l9TA
FDR Drive, NYC
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FDR_Drive 1
https://twitter.com/the_transit_guy/status/1543242784559308800 2
https://untappedcities.com/2016/07/05/the-top-10-secrets-of-the-fdr-drive-in-nyc 3
So far, Vancouver hasn't had the same scale of urban development that's common in several other cities. The buildings, roads, trains & bridges are half the size of many of the big cities.
Vancouver#Incorporation 1886
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