Year of change
Pundits have played up the auspicious character ascribed to the Year of the Dragon, but most overlooked the fact that change and upheaval are also associated with this most powerful of totems.
But with the firing last week of Brent Toderian as planning director for Vancouver, the outgoing executive director of the Urban Development Institute cast the new lunar year in exactly those terms.
“There’s so many changes going on right now. It’s a very interesting year,” Maureen Enser said, weeks before retiring after three decades at the helm of an organization whose members are no strangers to run-ins with city planners.
Together with the retirement of Metro Vancouver chief administrative officer Johnny Carline on February 14, Enser believes there’s significant potential for changes in how Vancouver’s development is handled.
“I think we’re having a real shift here,” she said. “It’s a real opportunity to see if there’s new ideas for how we build cities.”
Toderian succeeded Larry Beasley and Ann McAfee as the city’s planning director in 2006.
He came to Vancouver from Calgary’s planning department and was initially excited at the chance to succeed Beasley, who was adept at working with developers to achieve the sort of balance Toderian envisioned.
However, he also brought his own ambitions and critique of the city’s form: A desire to shift away from the point tower and punctuate the urban landscape with startling architectural statements was one; a review of tower heights was another, as much to add dynamism to the skyline as accommodate the ever-greater density needed to make building here economically viable.
But the willingness to break ground also contributed to fractured relationships with developers and community groups. Just ask the folks in Norquay or property owners and developers trying to understand the formula for community amenity contributions in the Cambie corridor.
Toderian regularly noted that good planning should uphold the city’s best interests, even if the interests of every citizen aren’t met.
“That’s an important kind of balancing act that we try to do,” he told one luncheon last fall.
The balancing act will fall to city managers until an international competition finds someone keen to work with councillors to address “housing affordability, economic development, citizen engagement and a broad sustainability agenda.”
Terminal City leasing
The downtown office market keeps getting more exciting.
With vacancies running at a near-record low of 3.4% (according to CB Richard Ellis) and several planned office projects soliciting tenants, activity is set to ramp up.
“I believe the market eagerly awaits new development,” said Mark Renzoni, managing director of the Vancouver office of CB Richard Ellis said last week, noting that many tenants are seeking leases in advance of renewals that will begin in 2013.
This is benefitting the first wave of projects, including 745 Thurlow, 1021 West Hastings Street and Telus Garden, all of which are reported to be seeing stronger than anticipated leasing.
Renzoni was hardly off the phone before Oxford Properties Group announced that accounting firm Meyers Norris Penny LLP had signed on for 72,000 square feet and naming rights at 1021 West Hastings Street. MNP Tower, as the project will be known, will complete by summer 2014. Word on the street, however, tips Oxford as having garnered leases or offers on at least half the building. Telus is also reported to have a major tenant on board to complement its own occupancy of Telus Garden.
The activity primes the three buildings – totalling close to 1.2 million square feet of office space – on track for substantial occupancy when 2014 rolls around.
Renzoni, for his part, expects Credit Suisse’s redevelopment of the old Vancouver Stock Exchange and Manulife’s project at 960 Howe Street to be next out of the gates, boosting opportunities for tenants looking for new space and those seeking to trade up. •
