Vancouver city council will consider a report tomorrow (July 26) on the future of the Georgia and Dunsmuir viaducts.
The report notes the viaducts are no longer crucial to the city’s transportation system but that it will take at least 10 to 15 years to remove the elevated transportation thoroughfares.
The report is part of a phased $300,000 study into whether the viaducts should come down.
Business in Vancouver reported in April that removing the Georgia and Dunsmuir viaducts would pump badly needed cash into City of Vancouver coffers and create a revitalized high-end neighbourhood that could include a beach at the east end of False Creek. (See: “False Creek beach blanket bingo” – issue 1122; April 26-May 2.)
“We need to open up our thinking,” Bing Thom Architects principal Bing Thom told BIV at the time.
“Maybe the whole east end of False Creek should be a beach. There’s no beach in the east side of the city that faces south. Crab Park Beach and New Brighton Beach face north.”
Thom estimated that removal of both viaducts and reconfiguring roads, sewers and other infrastructure could cost Vancouver $100 million.
However, the city would free up 10 acres of developable land underneath the viaducts. The property would need soil remediation, but it could still be sold for at least $150 million.
Thom said wresting community benefits from developers that propose towers on the land would provide the city with another $150 million.
Exact numbers in the business case for the viaducts’ removal would depend on:
- how much density the city allows on the underlying land;
- what zoning it would give proposed developments; and
- how much money developers could get from selling units in the towers.
Glen Korstrom
Twitter: GlenKorstrom