Bringing up baby in ‘hip’ location the H+H offer
Michael Sasges
Sun
Glowing panels of floorplans flanking Andrea Trethaway of the Homer+Helmcken presentation centre declares its open-for-business status. Photograph by : Mark van Manen, Vancouver Sun
‘Not your standard vertical tower’ H+H will consist of eight high-rise floors above eight low-rise floors. Photograph by : Mark van Manen, Vancouver Sun
(Kitchen) Photograph by : Mark van Manen, Vancouver Sun
(Bathroom) Photograph by : Mark van Manen, Vancouver Sun
(Faucet) Photograph by : Mark van Manen, Vancouver Sun
The architectural drawings that Tracie McTavish holds (above) are available in the H+H presentation centre for leisurely review latest testament to the changing quality of the conversation between new-home shoppers and developers locally. Photograph by : Mark van Manen, Vancouver Sun
At 16 floors, the high-rise component of the Homer+Helmcken building is not particularly tall. At eight floors consisting of six floors of apartments above two-floor townhouses, the low-rise, or base, component, is tall, however.
The “Robinson Tower” at Richards and Helmcken, just across the lane from H+H, climbs 17 floors, but only from a short base or “townhouse podium,” in the words of a city hall document the compares developments around the H+H project.
The office building at the northwest corner of Homer and Helmcken, across the street from H+H rises six floors.
The “City Crest Tower” at Homer and Davie, H+H’s next-door neighbour, rises 29 floors, but again only from a short base. (City hall asked the Chandler development company to improve that part of the H+H wall that rises two floors above the “City Crest” base.)
“Relative to the developments you’re seeing in today’s downtown marketplace, this is not a typical development,” comments Tracie McTavish of Rennie Marketing Systems, which is selling the H+H project on behalf of the Chandler development company.
“It is not your standard vertical tower with a typical floorplate that repeats from, say, the second or third floors up to the 30th floor.”
By forgoing all those floorplate repetitions, the development company surrenders construction economies. But it also gains market reach.
“It does offer the consumer far more opportunities and variety in floorplans,” McTavish observes. “And that’s a big plus.”
About 2,000 people, as of last week, had registered their interest in a new-home project of fewer than 200 homes, The “grand opening” today of the sales centre on Richards Street could find the Rennie sales people doing less selling and more taking orders.
The variety of homes available – the number of floorplans approaches 20 – is certainly one reason for the strong interest in the project.
The size of some of the homes is probably another. There are 85 two-bedroom or two-bedroom plus homes. The apartments range from about 800 square feet to about 900 square feet. The townhouses average around 1,200 square feet.
The building’s location is probably another. Residents of the homes above Homer and Helmcken streets will enjoy protected views to the east, across the “heritage” warehouses of Yaletown whose heights can be increased, but not by much.
“It puts you on a kind of a perch,” McTavish says of the building’s location, across Homer Street from the “western” boundary of the official Yaletown heritage neighbourhood.
So, who will be enjoying those views from the H+H building?
Families, moms ‘n’ dads and their modern-Canada equivalents and their children, are the expectation at city hall and at the Chandler development company.
“The building is located near local parks and . . . Elsie Roy elementary school . . ., making it an attractive address for families with children,” the social planning department comments.
One of the amenities Chandler will include in the building is a children’s playground in one of the two rooftop gardens. City hall, while applauding, also asked Chandler to include a washroom near the playground.
“You’re allowed to be hip when you’re 35 years old with a three year old. That’s a good thing, a very, very good thing,” McTavish says.
Rare will be the H+H family that has to walk the downtown streets between motor vehicle and apartment. Secure parking will be available underground, in 223 stalls.
Can Chandler do H+H on time and on budget, the question every new-home shopper should be asking these days of multiple-residential sales staff. There are no guarantees in life, of course. Here’s Tracie McTavish’s answer:
“The common thread in the majority of our meetings, with all of our developers, are constructions costs, where are they, where are they going, . . . ?
“The developers are recognizing the challenges ahead, be it cost increases, a lack of trades, and are factoring a stumble into their equations.
“I would argue that two or three years ago it wasn’t expected, it wasn’t planned for. And I think some developers probably got caught . The standard was you break ground and 22, 24 months later the buyers walk in and put their clothes in their closets. It isn’t that way always any more.”
Feeling lookie lou-ish this weekend? Visit the H+H presentation centre to see the latest “big” family home locally from a developer who’s going to market in interesting times. If there’s a line-up to get in, however, remember, mothers and children first!
HOMER+HELMCKEN
Project location: 1100-block Homer, Vancouver
Presentation centre: 1066 Richards
Hours: Noon – 6 p.m., Sat – Thu
Telephone: 604-692-0021
Web: hhyaletown.com
Project size: 192 apartments
and townhouses, 16-storey high-rise, eight-storey low-rise
Residence size: 1bedroom, from 557 sq. ft.; 2 bedrooms, from 910 sq. ft.; townhouses, from 1,180 sq. ft.
Prices: 2 bedroom, from
$460,000
Developer: Chandler Development Group Inc.
Architect: IBI/HB
Interior Design: BYU Interiors
Tentative occupancy: Fall, 2008
UNIQUE PRESENTATION CENTRE TELLS CONSUMERS WHAT IS AVAILABLE
New-home-project novelty
The Homer+Helmcken presentation centre on Richards Street is a new-home-project novelty (until someone says otherwise).
Two completed homes
It’s designed around two kitchens and their matching bathrooms, a presentation that has not been done before, in Tracie McTavish’s memory.
Two completed homes in a presentation centre have been not before, of course. Grace Kwok, the pioneer of the new-home pre-sell, and the Pinnacle development company installed two homes in the Esplanade presentation centre in North Vancouver, for example. One of the younger development companies locally, Mosaic, is selling its Shoreline townhouses in Pitt Meadows from three show homes.
kitchens that are very different
The two-kitchen, two-bath presentation in the H+H sales centre is to demonstrate an unusual component of the H+H product: The kitchens are very different in all their parts, not just in their dark and light colour schemes.
Their cabinetry is different; their counter tops are different; the appliance packages are different. For example, the “cool Manhattan” comes with “Shaker-style” cabinetry, meaning the doors consist of a panel framed by stiles and rails. The “warm Santa Monica” scheme (this page) comes with doors that consist of an unframed panel.
buyers can ‘make some decisions’
“It’s a different way to describe to consumers what’s available to them in the purchasing process,” McTavish comments.
” . . . they are interchangeable to a certain extent. It is an upgrade in other projects. We didn’t want to do upgrades; we just felt buyers deserve an opportunity to make some decisions.”
ARCHITECTURAL DRAWINGS FOR WELL-EDUCATED CONSUMERS
Available for leisurely review
The architectural drawings that Tracie McTavish holds (above) are available in the H+H presentation centre for leisurely review, latest testament to the changing quality of the conversation between new-home shoppers and developers locally.
Valuable selling tool
“The consumer is pretty educated,” the president of Rennie Marketing Systems says. “You give him or her a floorplan, they’re not going, ‘what’s this box?’ They can read plans.
That’s why we have the plans table. It’s for the buyer to read the plans. It’s probably one of the most valuable selling tools in this display centre. People love to read plans.”
Plan enthusiasts tend to be younger
Not all people, of course. Younger shoppers are more likely to be plan enthusiasts than older shoppers.
“I would argue that the 20 year old, the 30 year old are probably further along the [learning] curve in general. It’s the world they live in” McTavish says.
“For people in their 40s and 50s and 60s, it is a little different. But we’re not necessarily marketing to 60 year olds in this building. We may be, with the penthouses.”
© The Vancouver Sun 2006
