The City of Vancouver wants to totally reimagine Granville Street between Robson and Drake streets.
Forty-storey towers on Granville Street downtown. No more buses on the Granville Mall.
Recommended Videos
These proposals and more are included in a new document released by the City of Vancouver on Wednesday.
There will also be public open houses this week at the Pacific Centre Mall, Robson and Granville entrance, from 1:30 to 5 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 7, and from noon to 3 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 8.
The document covers Granville between Robson and Drake streets, and divides the street into three “land use policy areas” — City Centre, Entertainment Core, and Bridgehead.
The current zoning is up to 90 feet, which typically means nine storeys, but the document proposes rezoning up to 400 feet, or 40 storeys.
“The tallest buildings will be near the City Centre Station (Canada Line), which will be explored as a higher building zone as part of the plan’s implementation,” the document states.
The city is looking to increase the number of hotels and rental apartments in the area, as well as “support a diversity of new arts and culture space (live music and performance venues, galleries, comedy, etc.) through rezoning and density bonusing.”
It also envisions that “a fully pedestrian Granville Street is achievable over time,” with buses moved to Howe and Seymour streets.
Bonnis Properties is a major landowner on Granville Street. It cancelled a proposed 17-storey tower in the 800-block of Granville in the spring of 2024, but Kerry Bonnis said the company is working on a new plan for the site.
“We’ve amended our rezoning application to adopt to the current market conditions,” said Bonnis.
“The larger issue was the decline in demand for major office space. We’ve kept all the uses that we’ve proposed, and we’ve added on top of it a hotel component above all the commercial areas, and residential rental towers as well.”
Bonnis said downtown Granville needs change.
“We need it fast and we need to allow for mixed use, including residential on the whole street,” he said. “This will really benefit (the street) and get these projects off the ground.”
Longtime club owner John Teti, of Richard’s On Richards and the Shark Club, agrees.
“Let’s be honest, it isn’t working,” said Teti. “Granville Street doesn’t work.”
Teti recalls the creation of the current nightclub area on Granville, where the city encouraged bar owners to move their licences from Downtown South or Yaletown to the Granville Strip.
But some clubs in Granville downtown have struggled since COVID, and Teti thinks there may be a move by consumers away from the big bars of the past.
“This particular generation seems to want to congregate in smaller areas and more sort of cocktail or restaurant type of atmospheres,” he said.
Urban planner Michael Geller also doesn’t have a problem with more residential on Granville.
“In the past, they discouraged having a lot of housing in the entertainment district, because there was a concern that residents would complain about the noise, and that the entertainment aspect should predominate,” he said.
“Personally, I think you can mix the two. You can do it partially through design — the quality of the windows and things like that. And people moving into buildings with a nightclub on the ground floor will know what to expect.”
As for the removal of buses on Granville, Denis Agar sounds baffled.
Agar is the executive-director of Movement: Metro Vancouver Transit Riders. The Granville proposal includes plenty of new public space, which is probably why the city wants to move the buses to other streets.
“Every day, Vancouverites take 80,000 trips on the buses that use Granville Street,” said Agar.
“Not only is it the most crucial bus corridor, it is one of the most crucial pieces of infrastructure in this region, period.
“Public squares are incredible and we need more of them. (But) why on earth would the city target bus riders for removal when there are so many other options? They could choose a different location, or they could redesign the street so that buses and people can share it.”