Charlie Anderson
Province
An artist’s depiction of a proposed 43-storey building that will be built at the corner of Bute and Melville streets. Vancouver gave permission for the building to be constructed to a height of 122 metres, which is 30 metres higher than the city’s maximum allowable building height. The city allows such buildings if they are architecturally excellent and if they go through a special review process. CREDIT: The Province
Vancouver city council has given the go-ahead to a 122-metre-tall tower that will soar 30.48 m above the city’s maximum building height limit.
The 43 storey tower, to be built at 550 Bute St., will be a mixture of retail, hotel, office and residential space.
The city allows buildings to exceed the limit provided they are architecturally excellent and pass a special review process, which includes notable architects.
Architect Dave Hewitt of Hewitt Kwasnicky told the city’s High Building Panel that the sweeping tower roof “forms not only a powerful and dramatic image on the skyline, but metaphorically represents the sea waves crashing onto the shore.”
The motif will be repeated in other design features and the outside of the building will include a major copper component. “The copper on all elements of the building will be real copper installed in its natural state and allowed to weather and patina over time, again metaphorically representing the changing of the West Coast season,” Hewitt explained in his design rationale.
The building will also contain heavy timbers salvaged from the former Oak-alla penitentiary in Burnaby and from the North Shore‘s Versatile Shipyards.
The building is owned by Wentworth Properties (Melville) Inc. As part of the deal, the building will include a 6,000-square-foot amenity space to house Volunteer Vancouver.
The tower will not be Vancouver‘s tallest, as the 48-storey One Wall Centre at Burrard and Nelson stands at 152 m.
The city has also given approval for a 156-m-high building to be built behind the Hotel Georgia.
A hotel, to be built on the second floor, will be a “European-style boutique hotel” in which the clientele “will arrive in limousines rather than buses.”
The new building didn’t pass muster without controversy. Residents in the neighbouring Orca building complained they would lose their private views and a condition imposed by the city to “slim” the tower didn’t satisfy them.
Their appeal against the building was denied at the Board of Variance. They continued their opposition, unsuccessfully, through the high-building application process.
City staff said the increase in the building’s height was justified: “Architectural excellence, urban design and contribution to the skyline have been supported through the full design review process, in addition to satisfying other high-building policy considerations in the form of public amenities.
© The Vancouver Province 2004
