May 26th, 2006

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Sports, Vancouver
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The Historical Waterfront Defence

There’s much ado about a proposal for a new soccer stadium in downtown Vancouver. The for and against camps have been lobbing media releases and press conferences at each other for months. The latest salvo against the proposal comes from a couple of prominent architects, Arthur Erickson and Bing Thom.

Gerry Bellett wrote the article, and didn’t get a comment or response from the pro-stadium camp. I’ve emailed him to ask him why.

There’s one component of the anti-stadium message that strikes me as dubious:

“This is the last piece of waterfront the city has and from a heritage aspect it’s very sensitive. There is no comprehensive plan for the area. This [the stadium] is a one-off that’s going to be built over the tracks, creating a barrier between Gastown and the waterfront,” Gastown Neighbourhood Coalition Jon Stovell said.

While I agree that there should be a comprehensive plan for the waterfront, the ’sensitive heritage site’ defence always seems kind of laughable. Have they forgotten that the waterfront has been separated from the water by train tracks for the last hundred years? And haven’t they noticed the big heliport and associated parking lot?

I guess the local merchants haven’t minded besmirching Gastown’s heritage flavour with the hundreds of cruise ships that come in and out of port down there. After all, they’re floating ATMs in the form of aging American tourists.

Nobody seems to have cared about this strip of waterfront until somebody filed a proposal. What have local business owners and residents done in the past fifty years to better that strip of land? Why did it suddenly become so precious in 2006?

I’m not saying that the stadium proposal doesn’t deserve a thorough review. It’s receiving that. I also suspect that the proposal will have to be modified to pass the city’s muster. I’d be shocked and a little worried if the city approved the proposal as it stands. I assume every one of these large scale developments are hard-fought compromises between developers and the city of Vancouver.

The anti-stadium side feels a little like sour grapes. I hope that the Gastown Neighbourhood Coalition can demonstrate that their members have history of lobbying for the betterment of Gastown, and in particular this much-debated strip of waterfront.

Comments: 3 Responses so far

Jordan
May 26th, 2006
2:28 pm

I’m the pro camp, personally.

Stadium = better looking more vibrant waterfront (not too hard to improve upon traintracks and shipping containers though).

And the view from the stadium (as proposed in artist’s renderings) will be talked about the world over.

[Reply]

Bill Currie
May 27th, 2006
8:15 pm

Hi Darren,

You’re exactly right about the dubious nature of the heritage defence. The fact that the Vancouver Sun didn’t even try to contact the Architect of the project, or the Whitecaps is shameful.

For a partial rebuttal of Erickson’s & Thom’s remarks, please check out our Pro-Stadium website http://www.friendsofsoccer.org . You’ll see that the architect in charge of the project has had more influence over Vancouver’s waterfront, transportation infrastructure, and heritage restoration than Thom & Erickson combined.

[Reply]

Steph
June 14th, 2006
9:30 pm

It’s not that nobody cared. Folks in the neighbourhood and at city hall have been thinking about that land for a long time, but it wasn’t a pressing issue because nobody was making noises about developing the land until Kerfoot’s purchase. Other civic planning issues took priority. And development of the port lands is complicated for a bunch of reasons (including unresolved land claims). These things tend to need some kind of triggering issue to get them rolling. You’re a smart guy, but I think it might be useful to look a little more deeply into how planning works.

[Reply]

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