‘Rhythmical’ Pulse an opportunity for a home above the beach, one bridge away from downtown

Michael Sasges
Sun

‘Well executed’ and ‘well resolved’ were among the responses at city hall to the Nigel Baldwin design for the Pulse building, to be located at Broadway and Maple. Photograph by : Glenn Baglo, Vancouver Sun

PULSE’S STEEL-AND-STONE LURES: The features the Bastion development company will install in the Pulse homes amount to an escalation in the features package with which developers compete for the new-home shopper’s dollar. A tub so new Bastion vice-president Kim Maust hasn’t seen it is one highlight. A refrigerator from a rarely heard-from German company, Blomberg, is another. The tub will be manufactured by the Kohler plumbing company, also the source of the basins, faucets and toilets in the Pulse bathrooms (K14/15). (So, yes, the tub in the presentation centre is a tub-like-this-more-or-less item.) The ceramic tile floors in the Pulse bathrooms will be heated. Engineered stone will top the bathroom counters and be used for the backsplashes. The bathrooms will have a harmonious spa atmosphere, Maust promises. Bosch will dominate in the Pulse kitchen, supplying the gas range, the microwave and the dishwasher. Granite will top counters and act as backsplashes. Photograph by : Glenn Baglo, Vancouver Sun

Bathroom Photograph by : Glenn Baglo, Vancouver Sun

Bathroom fixtures Photograph by : Glenn Baglo, Vancouver Sun

Bathroom fixtures Photograph by : Glenn Baglo, Vancouver Sun

PULSE

Location: Kitsilano, Vancouver

Project size: 72 apartments, 2 townhouses, 7-storey building

Residence size: 638 sq. ft. — 1,250 sq. ft.

Prices: $428,800 — $1.3 Million

Sales centre address: 1964 West Broadway

Telephone: 604-258-0212

Web: liveatpulse.com

Developer: Bastion Development Corp.

Architect: Nigel Baldwin Architect

Interior design: Cristina Oberti Interior Design Inc.

Tentative occupancy: December 2009

– – –

Pulse is a new-home opportunity in an old Vancouver neighbourhood from a developer and builder with a history of inserting multiple-residence buildings into the Kitsilano neighbourhood, and a history of inserting buildings of felicitous presence into Vancouver neighbourhoods.

The Pulse design, by architect Nigel Baldwin, is “contemporary, rhythmical, geometric . . . a fusion of glass, metal and concrete that reflects Kitsilano’s modern edge,” says Kim Maust, the Bastion development company executive who will direct construction of the building and its homes.

At city hall, the design generated accolades. Members of the urban design panel “unanimously supported [the] application and commended the architect on a well executed project.”

Development permit board staff were also approving, calling the Bastion proposal “very well resolved with an elegant architectural treatment.”

The three-season opportunity for experiencing metro Vancouver residency outside four walls will be flagged dramatically, for both Pulse resident and passerby.

“Each upper-floor apartment will have a spiral stair to access rooftop private patios, separated from each other by planting,” builder Maust reports. “These shrouded chartreuse exterior stairwells will give Pulse its unique character.”

The building’s Maple and Broadway location puts it –almost — halfway between English Bay, below and to the north, and Shaughnessy Heights, above and to the south.

The prospects from those rooftop patios will be voluptuous, all directions, all hours, all seasons, with mountains and downtown towers to the north, and mature residential streetscapes to the north, south, west and east.

Pulse is the fourth Bastion project I have profiled in three years. Like Pulse, the others all demonstrate an expenditure of time and treasure on right-for-the-site design.

The terraces of the Coast project at the University of B.C. step — figuratively — up to campus and down to English Bay and the Strait of Georgia.

The Corus project, also at UBC, claims its site with a towering, skyward punch, acknowledgement of the nearby Walter H. Gage student residences tower and the prospects generated by peninsular residency.

Montreux, near First and Cambie, is a pioneering residential incursion in an industrial neighbourhood. It both anticipates the future and announces the past.

Its contemporary massing heralds the imminent transition of the north shore of eastern False Creek into the “South East False Creek” master-planned community, anchored by the Olympic Village. Inclusion of metal cladding on the building’s exterior memorializes a century of industrial activity.

Pulse is the sixth Bastion project in Kitsilano in Kim Maust’s 10 years with the developer. Executive and company know the neighbourhood well enough to know Kitsilano is a wonderful community in which to raise a family, and they are presenting Pulse as an opportunity to start a family.

Two-thirds of the Pulse homes are two-bedroom homes. “With 50 units that are two-bedroom plus, we are expecting that our demographic will include young families — many of them first-time homebuyers — single professionals and empty-nesters,” Maust says.

(Another number of note is the number of floor plans available: 30, a big number in a small development.)

Bastion will install a play area on a landscaped terrace on the second Pulse floor. Other shared amenities planned for this terrace are a communal garden and a pavilion, which will ensure that Pulse’s youngsters and their guests can play outside all year.

“The amenity building is a one-of-a-kind, fully finished pavilion separate from the main structure that provides a warm, dry play area for children during inclement weather, a meeting area for the strata council or, possibly, a guest house,” Maust says.

Proximities make Kitsilano a desirable place in which to pass a lifetime, let alone start and rear a family.

The defining proximity, of course, is Kits Beach, between Hadden Point and the Kitsilano Yacht Club to the west of the tidal-draw pool.

Downtown Vancouver’s shopping and entertainment attractions are one bridge away. Some of the city’s finest dining spots are a stroll away from Pulse, and the South Granville shopping district and Granville Island are also within easy walking distance. A grocery and liquor store are conveniently located across the street.

The University of B.C. is up the hill. The neighbourhood high school, Kitsilano secondary, graduates young men and women of athletic and academic accomplishment year in and year out.

The nearest elementary school, Lord Tennyson, is half a block south of Pulse, on West Tenth. Both schools enrol French immersion students.

Both elementary and secondary school are markers of the neighbourhood’s age. Tennyson was completed in 1912, and the first Kitsilano buildings in 1917.

(A Kits alumnus, Beverley Hauff, is the manager of the Pulse sales centre; she is also a former Miss Kitsilano, crowned at the Showboat, at Kits pool, and then deposed for being under age, she reports. Her elementary school, Bayview, is another Kits feeder.)

Maust’s description of Kitsilano as “iconic or idyllic” is not to be doubted.

The neighbourhood’s “modern edge” — see above — is equally incontrovertible.

For example, the international Greenpeace organization was whelped and nurtured in the neighbourhood. In other words, one of the voices articulating the pre-eminent passion of our age, environmental stewardship, took on a vocabulary in the neighbourhood.

As the Bastion executive observed: “Eco-density, sustainability and Kitsilano go hand-in-hand.

“Pulse is located in a vibrant, mixed-use neighbourhood rich in cultural, social, employment and retail resources.

“Everything needed to sustain modern urban life is available within walking distance. Within steps, Pulse residents will find schools, walk-in clinics, dental offices, community centres and transit.”

To be fair, she wasn’t reflecting on neighbourhood history in identifying location as a source of Pulse’s contribution to sustainability; she was answering the question, what are the sustainability features of Pulse?

This is a question all developers of Vancouver properties will be asked at city hall more and more, in response to Mayor Sam Sullivan’s “EcoDensity” initiative and the public profession of environmental stewardship by the new director of planning.

Maust says that more than 75 per cent of building-waste materials will be salvaged, reused or recycled — and diverted from the landfill.

The architect has arranged the homes to facilitate natural ventilation, she adds. They will be well insulated and behind “high-performance glazing.”

“Water-efficient landscaping will cut irrigation needs by 50 per cent, while low-flow plumbing and Energy Star appliances will reduce home water use by 20 per cent,” she says.

“The use of low-emitting paints, adhesives, sealants, and other materials in the homes will improve indoor environmental air quality, resulting in healthier living spaces for Pulse residents.

“The use of compact fluorescents and motion-sensor activation controls in less frequently used common spaces will reduce common-area expense.”

As I said at the start of this profile, Pulse should be a felicitous addition to the Vancouver cityscape, an appropriate architectural marker of time and space.

– – –

THE BUILDING MODEL

The Pulse new-home project, a seven-storey concrete structure of 74 homes,

is a socially sanctioned addition to the West Broadway streetscape.

“Retail is an outright use and residential is a conditional use” at Broadway and Maple, as one city hall review of the Bastion development company’s permit-application noted.

Bastion’s proposal for the site generated not only the residential content, but increases in density and height.

Here’s how the veteran developer and builder did it, according to development permit board staff in a report to the board:

– “meeting [zoning] guidelines, including pedestrian amenity, weather protection, street trees and deleting driveway-crossings on [Broadway].

– “high-quality architectural materials and treatments (no stucco);

– “response to solar orientation on south and west facades.

– “provision of landscaped public realm; and

– “provision of open space through a setback on Maple Street.”

Further, the Nigel Baldwin “massing” is more robust than the “massing” anticipated in guidelines established after neighbourhood consultation three years ago.

– “on balance, staff consider that this well-resolved architectural form provides benefits to livability and neighbourliness which offset the challenges of the form,” the report from staff to the development permit board comments.

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

Move follows controversial hotel purchase from Hells Angels member

Kim Bolan
Sun

The city of Vancouver paid almost three times the assessed value for the Drake Hotel at 606 Powell St. Photograph by : Ian Lindsay, Vancouver Sun

VANCOUVER – Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan has ordered a review of how real estate deals are done after the controversial purchase by the city of the Drake Hotel from a prominent Hells Angel member for $3.2 million.

Sullivan said Friday he’s asked city manager Judy Rogers to look at procurement practices after learning of the link between the hotel, which is to converted to social housing, and John Bryce, the longtime president of the East End chapter of the Hells Angels.

“I met with the city manager a little earlier today and have asked her to ensure that we do review our procurement practices,” Sullivan said in an interview. “It is a very difficult issue when you are dealing with so many conflicting values or competing values.”

He said it may be deemed necessary in future to check with Vancouver police before business deals are entered into by the city — at least in some cases.

Law enforcement agencies call the Hells Angels the biggest organized crime group in B.C. and Bryce has been a prominent member of the club for years.

Sullivan confirmed city staff were aware Bryce is the only director of the numbered company that owned the Drake. But he and other councillors said politicians at city hall were unaware of the biker connection until it was reported in The Vancouver Sun Friday.

Several councillors told The Sun they think the optics of the deal are troubling.

Sullivan said he understands the concern, but he also feels conflicted about the purchase.

“I am torn on this particular issue. My No. 1 priority is dealing with homelessness and the purchase of the Drake will provide 24 people with homes. We have also shut down a bar in the Downtown Eastside and discontinued the exotic dancing part of that business,” Sullivan said.

Vancouver Const. Howard Chow said the department’s Outlaw Motorcycle Gang unit is certainly aware of the Drake’s links to the province’s most notorious biker club.

“We were aware of the Drake and the Hells Angels involvement with this place — in particular John Bryce as president of the East End chapter,” Chow said, adding police specialists are available to brief city staff whenever they’re called upon to do so.

Insp. Gary Shinkaruk, who heads the RCMP’s biker unit, said his section called Vancouver officials Friday to see if they need any background on the Hells Angels, its East End chapter or Bryce.

“I don’t think taxpayers want their tax dollars going into organized crime groups,” Shinkaruk said, adding police obviously support the creation of low-income housing.

But he said the purchase of the Drake “is concerning to police.”

“Our role is to provide city officials with information so they can make an informed decision,” Shinkaruk said.

Sullivan announced Thursday the city had paid almost three times the assessed value for the hotel at 606 Powell St.

Assessment, land title and company records show the hotel was owned by a numbered company, 634321 BC Ltd., whose president, secretary and sole director is Bryce, who police say remains an influential figure in the Angels.

In April, Bryce’s son, Jonathan Bryce, was sentenced to six years in prison for cocaine trafficking and extortion.

Company records for 634321 BC Ltd. list Bryce’s registered address as 3270 Parker Ave. in Burnaby, which is the location of his Hi-Way Choppers motorcycle shop.

Councillors from both Vision Vancouver and Sullivan’s Non-Partisan Association expressed concern after learning of the Hells Angels link.

“It does raise some interesting issues,” Coun. Suzanne Anton said, adding council needs to discuss the issue. “Certainly, the optics are not very good.”

Coun. David Cadman said he has concerns about the biker link, but also about the fact the building was bought for much more than the assessed value of $1.14 million.

Coun. Kim Capri said city staff never check to see who the directors are of a numbered company when purchasing property because it is considered irrelevant, but Tim Stevenson, also a city councillor, said it should be relevant because the public is concerned about the issue.

“Obviously, we’ve been getting some calls,” Stevenson said.

Coun. George Chow said anytime the city does business with someone “it gives people the impression that we are legitimizing this person’s property, his behaviour and his connections.”

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

And owners want to clear the mortgages on recreational properties post-haste

Marty Hope
Sun

One out of every four Canadian adults would like to purchase a vacation property while one in seven already have a place for a weekend retreat or retirement property, the results of survey by Angus Reid Strategies suggests.

Canadians held $481 billion in real estate in 2005 other than their principal residences, a report from Invis brokerage says, almost double the $266 billion held just seven years earlier.

“Recreational properties, for many Canadians, are about having a place to get away from it all, enjoy time with friends and family, and create memories,” says Stan Falkowski, president of Mortgage Intelligence.

“This is particularly true of baby boomers.”

Conducted in May, the Angus Reid survey of 1,046 adult Canadians found 41 per cent were more than 55 years old, with 47 per cent ages 35 to 54 indicating they would like to purchase a recreational property.

“But it’s the baby boomer demographic that is increasingly splitting their time between work and home in the city, while focusing on activities they enjoy when spending time at their vacation property,” Falkowski says.

While they have every intention of enjoying their property, owners also want to be able to pay off the property quickly. Fifty-four per cent of Canadians would like to clear the mortgage from the table in 15 years or less. Falkowski says this is particularly true of Canadians 55 or older, with 83 per cent of them favouring this strategy.

The survey found that 69 per cent of putative Alberta purchasers are prepared to put down from 11 to 20 per cent of the purchase price as a down payment.

Comparable percentages include: B.C. and the Atlantic region, 54; Manitoba and Saskatchewan, 45; and Quebec, 40.

“Canadians . . . are always interested in getting rid of the mortgage as quickly as possible, so for many vacation property owners, paying down the mortgage quickly is about equity,” says Falkowski.

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

Drake and its stripper bar will be converted to social housing

Jeff Lee
Sun

Mayor Sam Sullivan said the city bought the Drake as part of its long-term strategy to reduce homelessness. Photograph by : Ian Lindsay, Vancouver Sun

The City of Vancouver has bought the Drake Hotel, a Downtown Eastside strip club, from a company whose sole director and officer is a high-profile member of the Hells Angels.

Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan announced Thursday the city had paid $3.2 million for the hotel at 606 Powell St.

Assessment, land title and company records show the hotel was owned by a numbered company, 634321 BC Ltd., whose president, secretary and sole director is John Bryce, president of the Angels’ East End chapter in Vancouver as recently as April. It also shows the property with an assessed value of $1.14 million this year, just over a third of what the city paid.

Bryce confirmed in a telephone interview that he is the director of the company that sold the hotel to the city, but said he was only one of a number of owners. He refused to discuss the matter further. When asked if he was still the president of the chapter, he said “no,” then hung up.

However, as recently as two months ago, Bryce, 56, was identified as president of the chapter, which police have said is one of the most powerful Hells Angels groups in the province. In April, his son, Jonathan Bryce, was sentenced to six years in prison for cocaine trafficking and extortion.

Company records for 634321 BC Ltd. list Bryce’s registered address as 3270 Parker Ave. in Burnaby, which is the location of his Hi-Way Choppers motorcycle shop.

Sullivan’s office said the mayor didn’t know who owned the hotel and was unaware Bryce was a director of the company.

“The mayor was not aware of that, and he would not normally have been aware of who the owners are of a property the city buys,” said David Hurford, Sullivan’s press officer.

He also said the purchase price reflected the going market and the fact there were multiple bidders.

Hurford said the city often uses an agent to purchase properties and wouldn’t deal directly with an owner, but in this case he doesn’t know if the city was aware of the Hells Angels connection.

Sullivan said the city bought the hotel as part of its long-term strategy to reduce homelessness. For more than three years, the hotel’s 24 rooms have been vacant. Only the hotel’s 220-seat pub, which featured exotic dancers, continued to operate.

But the hotel’s gritty history changed this week after the city agreed to buy it and refurbish the rooms in the short term for people on assistance. In the process, it decided not to renew the hotel’s liquor licence.

This isn’t the first time the hotel was sought by government. Forests Minister Rich Coleman said he tried to buy the Drake earlier this year as part of the purchase of 10 Downtown Eastside rooming hotels.

Calls to Coleman’s office later to inquire whether he was aware of the Angels connection were not returned.

Julian Sher, an author and expert on outlaw motorcycle gangs, said Bryce is considered to be one of the most influential Hells Angels members, regardless of whether he’s still the president of the East End chapter.

“He was always seen as one of the godfathers of the B.C. Hells Angels,” Sher said.

Coleman, who attended the news conference with Sullivan at city hall, said the province wasn’t able to conclude a deal with the Drake’s owners, so the city agreed to purchase it instead. But the province will help with income and support programs for the residents who will begin to move in sometime in the fall.

Sullivan said the hotel could be redeveloped for a combination of assisted and market housing and commercial services. But for now, he said it and the 10 single-room occupancy hotels the province bought last spring have more than doubled the target of housing identified in the city’s Vancouver Homeless Action Plan.

Jill Davidson, the city’s homeless policy coordinator, estimated it will spend about $30,000 per unit to refurbish the Drake.

At least one Vancouver councillor was concerned after learning of the Hells Angels connection.

Raymond Louie said he’s heard Bryce’s name before but did not know that he was a director of the company that owned the Drake.

He said he was surprised and concerned, but also believes the city’s purchase of the hotel was appropriate.

“In the end I don’t think it [the Hells Angels connection] is material to the intent of what we are trying to accomplish because we are trying to provide low income housing and to redevelop the property for a positive outcome of the community.”

But Louie said the city also needs to know that taxpayers’ money doesn’t go to fund illegal activities of outlaw motorcycle gangs. He added he didn’t know whether the company that owned the Drake was directly connected to the Angels.

“I think these are good questions. I’ll be asking that the process be tightened up slightly, so that perhaps we do look at [the history of an owner],” he said.

“But undertaking that work will be substantial, because if it’s not the Hells Angels then it could be a group that is offshore.”

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

Christina Montgomery
Province

The Drake Hotel on Powell Street has been bought by the City of Vancouver. Photograph by : Gerry Kahrmann, The Province

The strippers have been hustled offstage, the last glass of draught has been drawn and the 24 tiny hotel rooms that sat empty for several years are being renovated for some of Vancouver’s lowest-income residents.

The City of Vancouver announced yesterday it has bought the Drake Hotel — the longtime Powell Street bar known best for its exotic entertainers — for $3.2 million.

City housing planner Jill Davidson said an undetermined but modest amount will be spent renovating the rooms, which could be available for those on social housing by year’s end.

Proposals will be solicited from parties interested in redeveloping the hotel’s pub area.

Mayor Sam Sullivan said the purchase is part of his Civil City initiative, aimed in part at providing hard-to-house citizens with supportive rentals. The initiative’s goal is a reduction of homelessness by at least 50 per cent by 2010.

Provincial Housing Minister Rich Coleman, who was present for the announcement, said B.C. will eventually partner with the city in providing the programs that residents need — and, possibly, in eventual redevelopment of the site.

Both agreed that a chief attraction of the property was its massive parking lot — big enough, they noted, for another building or to allow the Drake to eventually be razed and replaced with something larger that might include market housing to subsidize low-income units.

Coleman used the occasion to plug the province’s recent purchase of 10 downtown hotels for low-income renters — although he conceded the purchase did more to protect existing housing than create new beds.

The purchases provided a “backstop” while further housing units are built, Coleman said.

Coun. Raymond Louie, generally a sharp critic of the mayor’s, called the Drake purchase “a good, positive investment opportunity.”

“It’s about making sure that our citizens’ taxes are spent wisely,” he said. “This was a good deal.”

But Louie also said the purchase represented only a first step toward replacing the 800 housing units that the watchdog Impact of the Olympics on Community Coalition says have disappeared from the Downtown Eastside since 2003.

© The Vancouver Province 2007

Condo project failed when construction costs raced ahead of contracted selling prices

Derrick Penner
Sun

Two principals in the financially troubled Riverbend condominium project in Coquitlam are also heading the company building a luxury waterfront resort in Ucluelet.

Grayden Hayward, who was director and president of Riverbend’s builder, CB Development (2000) Ltd., and his son-in-law Craig Lochhead, a CB Development director, are also directors of Island West Development (2006) Ltd., according to documents filed with the British Columbia corporate registry.

Island West, in 2006, obtained a development permit to redevelop an old campground, pub, hotel and marina into a 94-unit condominium resort, with an additional 14 units of non-market housing for the community.

CB Development was forced into receivership when its main mortgage lender on the third phase of Coquitlam’s Riverbend project, CareVest Capital Inc. foreclosed on the project.

Hayward said the result of that action won’t affect the Island West project because they are two different companies.

“Our major shareholder [in the Island West project] is entirely different,” Hayward said. “And the investors, equity investors, are entirely different and really no relationship to [the Riverbend project].”

Hayward added that while other media reports have tried to link the Island West and Riverbend projects, there is no connection.

The Riverbend project failed when construction costs raced ahead of the prices CB Development had agreed to sell units for in pre-sale contracts signed with 32 pre-sale buyers over 2005 and 2006.

In March, CareVest said it wouldn’t advance the money needed to complete the Riverbend project or release its loan unless the units were resold at current market prices, and CB Development cancelled its sales contracts.

A receiver’s report indicated that $3.8 million would be needed to complete the project and that CareVest would still lose between $2.6 million and $5 million, depending on which prices units sold for.

Hayward and Lochhead do own an interest in the Island West project, and Hayward said earlier reports raised the question why he and Lochhead couldn’t pull money out of the Ucluelet development to pour into the Coquitlam development.

“If we had a couple million bucks invested, we could try to sell our share and bring it out,” Hayward said, “But that’s not the case.”

© The Vancouver Sun 2007