Yaletown, Gastown, theatres, arenas nearby; more than 50 floorplans available

Michael Sasges
Sun

DOLCE SYMPHONY PLACE

Location: Downtown Vancouver

Project size: 198 apartments and townhouses, 32-storey building

Residence size: From 507 sq. ft.

Prices: From $389,900

Sales centre location: Richards at Smithe

Hours: 12 p.m. — 5 p.m. Saturday to Thursday

Telephone: 604-677-8386

Email: [email protected]

Developer: Solterra

Architect: Merrick

Interior designer: Portico

Tentative occupancy: Spring 2010

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To the organizers of the Dolce sales and marketing campaign, the eventual occupants of the homes in the downtown tower will reside either at a ”cultural crossroad” or in a symbol of international enthusiasm for a Vancouver address.

The champion of the latter is Cameron McNeill of MAC Marketing Solutions, the new-home project’s broker, while the former perspective is that of Darcy Nyrose of Solterra, the project’s builder and developer.

Who’s to argue? The Dolce campaign generated more than 160 sales in less than two weeks.

The cultural-crossroad metaphor speaks to the tower’s arts and entertainment proximities, the most important being the Orpheum Theatre, across Seymour Street. Gastown is to the north and Yaletown is to the south. GM Place and BC Place are to the east.

McNeill ‘s description of a Dolce residence speaks to another geography, only partially local.

“I think Dolce is very symbolic as to what the local, and the international, buyer feels about Vancouver.

“I think when we talk about these projects we talk about what’s happening on the micro level. But I believe the real driving force is what’s happening on the macro level.

“Vancouver has just constantly remained, year after year after year, the No. 1 place to live. The coming Olympics are an event. Some people think they are a non-event. They are a real significant event.

“There is a lot of buzz and excitement, more than last year, which was more than the year before and more than the year before that. We’ve got an economy that is really thriving. . . .

“And I really believe that is the underlying current that is really driving a lot of the excitement in our marketplace.

“Having said that, what are the options [downtown]? You can go to the absolute, absolute Rolls-Royce: waterfront. Or you can do a Mercedes/BMW that more people can afford, which this is.

“It is still expensive, by a Canadian standard, even by a Lower Mainland standard.

”But as far as buying the best city in the world, which many people believe this is, and buying a location from which you can walk to work, walk to Yaletown, go rollerblading on the seawall, where you can make a lifestyle . . . I really believe in my heart that that is far more important than what our countertops look like or even how our floorplans are done. That’s what Dolce, for me, symbolically means.”

However, the plans and the counters are not unworthy of mention — if only by numbers alone.

Solterra is selling more than 50 different plans in Dolce, proportionally a high number, and in four colour-and-material schemes. Two schemes, light and dark, are typical in a new-home project; three, generous. Four, rare.

There will be five townhouses; 21 lofts; 139 apartments on floors five through 24; and 33 ”view suites” on floors 25 through 32. The lower-floor apartments are mostly sold.

The lower-floor apartment mix will include studios, one bedroom-and-flex and two-bedroom-and-flex residences. The townhouses are one-bedroom, two-bedroom or three-bedroom residences.

The lower-floor apartments and the townhouses share two of the colour-and-finish schemes; the townhouses and “view suites,” the other two.

“This is kind of a vertical community here. I think you’re going to have a real variety [of residents],” McNeill says.

As pleased as they are with the success of their sales campaign, McNeill and Nyrose don’t want anyone to think there’s not much left to buy. There is.

“We still have a pretty good selection. I don’t want to discourage people from coming down,” McNeill comments.

EXEMPLARY MASTERY OF THE SMALLER SPACE

Curious about the mastery of Vancouver‘s developers and architects and designers of small-space homes? You owe yourself a visit to the Dolce sales centre on Richards Street, open from noon to 5 p.m. daily, except Friday.

There, the Solterra development company has installed a complete apartment, a two-bedroom, two-bath residence with den or “flex space” in less than 800 square feet.

Artful placement and treatment of components matters in the smaller home.

In the Dolce show home, the microwave is located below one of the two kitchen counters (top, left).

It’s not located above the counter or in or around the kitchen fan, a common treatment.

Further, its controls are not on the face, which would force the cook to bend over. They’re on the frame, under the counter.

Large, robust components enhance compact residency, as the basins, and their extenuated faucets, in the master bath (top, right) and the kitchen (left) demonstrate.

In another new-home project, there would probably be two basins on the kitchen counter and two in the master bath. In the Dolce apartments that would be one too many in these rooms.

Also worthy of note in the kitchens is the concealed refrigerator, on the left in the photo, and the shallow storage on the right, its depth just enough to accommodate just about any packaged food.

© The Vancouver Sun 2007

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