UBC I Adera project pays tribute to the many great architects of the Vancouver school
Michael Sasges
Sun
Does Legacy show ‘West Coast Modern’ features? Adera’s Norm Couttie says its simple form and clean lines answer yes. K8 Photograph by : Glenn Baglo, Vancouver Sun
On time on budget Photograph by : Glenn Baglo, Vancouver Sun
LEGACY AT HAWTHORN PLACE
Location: University of B.C.
Presentation centre address: 102 – 6279 Eagles Drive, off Thunderbird Boulevard
Hours: “Grand Opening” noon next Saturday
Telephone: 604-221-8878
Web: Adera.com
Project size: Four storeys, 55 apartments
Residence size: 1,050 sq. ft. – 1,725 sq. ft.
Developer: Adera
Architect: Integra
Interior design: Portico
Warranty: St Paul Guarantee
Tentative occupancy: February, 2007
Legacy is the third new-home project from Adera in the “University Town” neighbourhood of “Hawthorn Place.” It is also the last new-home project in the neighbourhood.
Chronology alone would have been enough to inspire the project’s name. “Adera considers Legacy to be both its legacy to the neighbourhood and the legacy project of the three [projects] which Adera will have built in the Hawthorn neighbourhood,” Adera executive Norm Couttie reports.
But history, the stuff that chronologies create, equally inspired the name.
Adera intends Legacy as a pointer to, and a reminder of, the role of the University of B.C. generally and its architecture school in the formulation of the “Vancouver school” of architecture and “West Coast modern.”
“Many of the great architects known as the Vancouver school got their start at the UBC School of Architecture,” another Adera executive, Howard Steiss, says in a news release.
Adera’s Legacy “vision … is of a West Coast modern building,” Couttie says.
Journey, the first Adera project at Hawthorn Place, “was a contemporary take on a West Coast post-and-beam structure, reminiscent of the Museum of Anthropology.” Reflections “was westside traditional.”
Legacy’s chronological status, last of three new-home projects by the same developer in a neighbourhood, begs answers to a couple of questions.
1. Not have prices changed, not have prices gone up, but how much have prices gone up?
2. What has Adera learned about the demand for market housing in the new UBC neighbourhoods that it didn’t know before these three projects?
3. Are there any more Adera new home projects coming in the next UBC neighbourhoods to be developed?
Couttie answered question 3; the Adera executive responsible for marketing the three projects, Steiss, questions 2 and 1.
1. “Probably about 30-per-cent higher, as a result of soaring land and construction costs.”
2. “How strongly received the developments were to international buyers.” As an observation, it’s one more illustration of the 2005 new-home-project “quote of the year,” from Cameron McNeill, MAC Marketing Solutions, at a local homebuilders’ conference:
“Vancouver is the … Swiss bank account of [international] real estate.”
3. According to the University Town website, completion of all nine “neighbourhoods” will take at least another 15 years. Legacy is definitely not the last Adera new-home contribution to University Town.
“Adera has been successful in acquiring the first lowrise apartment property offered in the new ‘South Campus’ residential neighbourhood and has just begun the planning process for this new project,” Couttie reports.
The new home projects on the UBC campus are a collaboration between some very experienced developers — Adera has been in business for almost 40 years — and some new oversight and regulatory regimes.
UBC is a school, not a municipality with more than a century of regulating new construction behind it.
“The process from development permit application to construction start is as fast as the quickest municipal approvals and considerably faster than the most immediate neighbouring jurisdiction,”
ON TIME, ON BUDGET
The competition for labour and materials between Winter Olympics projects and new homes might make a construction site a more compelling reason than the existence of a presentation centre to buy.
Howard Steiss’s answer to the question what has Adera management done to assure itself and the market, that it will build Legacy on time and on budget.
“We are proud to stand behind our reputation for on-time, quality delivery. I think it’s important to check out the reputation of the builder before making the commitment to such a major purchase.
“As a Gold Georgie winner for best customer service on six occasions and a Georgie best builder, we have an obligation to stay on top with our clients. We feel that we are one of the best managed companies in our industry; we are very confident with our projected completions.”
© The Vancouver Sun 2006
