Trio of six-storey residential developments planned for Marpole intersection
Density is coming to the South Vancouver neighbourhood of Marpole: a trio of six-storey towers is planned for the intersection of Cambie Street and West 62nd Avenue.
Two of the buildings—7765 Cambie Street and 7807 Cambie—have public hearings for rezoning applications scheduled for July 12. Rezoning for a third, proposed for 7790 Cambie, was approved in 2014.
Together, the three buildings could bring 86 condo units to the intersection.
All three were designed by Vancouver-based GBL Architects. In a telephone interview, Daniel Eisenberg, an associate at GBL, said the firm was already working on 7790 Cambie, on the intersection’s northeast corner, when two additional clients came to them separately with proposals for the northwest and southwest corners.
“It came about by chance,” he told the Straight. Eisenberg said that created an opportunity.
“Architecturally speaking, we made a case to create some sort of relationship between the three corners,” he explained. “We thought about how these three buildings could have a common denominator.”
Eisenberg said that will take the form of similarly designed entrances on the building corners, recessed back from the street to make room for three public spaces complete with small seating areas and landscaping.
Susan Haid is an assistant director of planning for the City of Vancouver. She told the Straight that increased density for Marpole was approved in 2011 with the adoption of the city’s long-term Cambie Corridor Plan. Since then, Haid said, the city has approved 38 rezoning applications. That means that if all goes well for GBL and its clients at the July 12 hearing, the total number of new developments approved for the Cambie corridor have will surpassed 40 in just five years.
“We are getting comments about the pace of change and the amount of change,” Haid said. “I think the pace is certainly proceeding more quickly than we anticipated when the plan was adopted. But it is proceeding according to the plan.”
Six-storey towers planned for 7765, 7807, and 7790 Cambie Street will be allowed under rezoning guidelines provided for in the city's long-term plan for the transportation corridor that runs from West 16th Avenue to the Fraser River.
The intersection of Cambie and West 62nd Avenue is just five blocks from the site of a future Canada Line SkyTrain station proposed for West 57th Avenue. According to Haid, a cost-analysis study is in the works but the project remains without a source of funding.
“Implementation is certainly a ways out but we want to make sure that we are accommodating the potential for it,” she said. “We are doing our homework with TransLink to explore and best facilitate its realization in the future.”
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