New Vancouver City Council to rethink plan to demolish downtown viaducts

Nov 8 2022, 2:27 am

When the plan to demolish the Dunsmuir and Georgia viaducts was fully approved by Vancouver City Council in early 2018, it was anticipated the arterial road bridges linking Strathcona with the downtown Vancouver escarpment would come down starting in 2020.

That never happened for a myriad of reasons, including the high cost of the required initial pre-demolition step of building a replacement surface arterial road that rejigs Pacific Boulevard and extends West Georgia Street from Beatty to Pacific Boulevard (between BC Place Stadium and Rogers Arena) — all before taking a wrecking ball to the viaducts.

But seven years after the Vision Vancouver-led City Council first directed City staff to explore the demolition of the viaducts as part of the Northeast False Creek Plan (NEFC) of densifying the area and introducing 32 acres of new and improved public parks and open spaces, it is clear that the viaducts demolition and NEFC Plan as a whole will cost much more than previously anticipated.

Ahead of the 2018 decision to approve the project, City staff suggested the entire public cost for the City of Vancouver for NEFC is $1.7 billion, which includes the new public amenities and public spaces, social housing, and $360 million for the demolition of the viaducts and the new replacement road network — up from $200 million in 2015.

These figures are now certainly much higher given the rampant escalation in construction costs, especially during the pandemic period.

vancouver viaducts

The existing Dunsmuir and Georgia viaducts looking west from the skatepark at Quebec Street. (Ted McGrath/Flickr)

Northeast False Creek viaducts

Northeast False Creek and the Dunsmuir and Georgia viaducts. (Ted McGrath/Flickr)

Artistic rendering of Northeast False Creek’s new public spaces, including the Concord Pacific development. (Concord Pacific)

The original plan was also built on a financial model of allowing significant market strata condominium housing — luxury residential homes — to offset the $1.7 billion cost as much as possible. But this comes against the tide of the softened condominium market, and the public’s desire for more affordable housing.

“The plan for removing the viaducts is predicated entirely on it being funded through developer contributions or community amenity contributions (CACs), which relies predominantly on having strata,” re-elected ABC city councillor Sarah Kirby-Yung told Daily Hive Urbanized in an interview.

“Seven years later, you now have escalating construction costs. It is going to be significantly more in today’s dollars, and we have a very different housing crunch, with respect to affordability and the expectation to deliver more rental and social housing.”

Kirby-Yung adds that the municipal government does not have the financial capacity to execute the project alone — there is no funding available in the City’s capital budget, and carrying it out as planned could compete with other major City priorities. She suggested proceeding with the NEFC Plan could require support from the provincial government, noting BC transportation minister Rob Fleming has already indicated he is open to discussions.

She says the project needs to be revisited given all that has changed since approval, specifically a new financial analysis and cost comparison of the potential options and scenarios.

“We need to balance the life safety and seismic risk of the structures relative to the cost of taking them down,” said Kirby-Yung, while emphasizing the benefits of housing, and placemaking — from new public spaces and opening up Chinatown to the waterfront as the potential outcome of getting rid of the viaducts.

Conceptual artistic rendering of the West Georgia Street ramp extension from Beatty Street to a rejigged Pacific Boulevard, situated between BC Place Stadium and Rogers Arena. (City of Vancouver)

Artistic rendering of the new West Georgia Street ramp between BC Place and Rogers Arena, extending to Pacific Boulevard. (VIA Architecture / City of Vancouver)

In April 2022, City staff stated the demolition of the viaducts could begin no earlier than 2027. Separately, the City’s draft capital budget for the forthcoming years also suggested reinvestments to structurally improve the viaducts would be required by 2032 if demolition is not undertaken.

Kirby-Yung emphasized the ABC-led City Council majority does not have a specific position on the future of the viaducts.

But she notes that consideration must also be given to ensure that the road network is reliable and safe for the new provincial-level St. Paul’s Hospital campus currently under construction at the easternmost end of the viaducts in the False Creek Flats. It is set to open in 2027, replacing the aging West End hospital.

City staff previously claimed emergency vehicles such as ambulances do not use the viaducts, but first responders have refuted this assertion.

Currently, both viaducts carry an average of about 45,000 vehicles per day. Without the bridges, the surface roads of Powell Street, Cordova Street, Hastings Street, Pender Street, and the rejigged Pacific Boulevard would see significantly greater vehicle traffic volumes as a direct result of transplanted traffic.

The existing viaducts were built in 1972 to replace the original 1915-built viaducts that were in poor condition. It served to provide a road span over the Northeast False Creek railyard, which was removed leading up to Expo ’86.

georgia viaduct northeast false creek

Georgia Viaduct next to Rogers Arena, June 2020. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

If NEFC is fully realized as originally planned, there will be homes for up to 12,000 new additional residents, including social housing for about 3,300 residents.

The various office, retail, restaurant, and entertainment spaces will generate up to 8,000 jobs. NEFC’s areas within the Plaza of Nations and Concord Pacific developments are intended to be a new stadium-oriented lively entertainment district.

To date, only the rezonings for the Plaza of Nations redevelopment and the BC Place Stadium tower have been approved by City Council. The development permit application for the first phase of the Plaza of Nations project was also fully approved earlier this year.

The largest development within the NEFC Plan will be achieved by Concord Pacific, but it has yet to achieve rezoning.

A significant portion of the NEFC Plan’s affordable housing components of social housing and rental housing are slated to be within the viaduct’s two city block footprint between Quebec Street and Gore Avenue. The west block (west of Main Street) is intended to be a southwest expansion of Chinatown, while the east block (west of Main Street) is envisioned as a new Hogan’s Alley commemorating the area’s Black community past.

As part of the NEFC Plan’s public space program, there would also be a new 750-metre-long elevated pedestrian and cycling pathway that starts at where the Dunsmuir viaduct currently meets Beatty Street, and ends on Quebec Street just north of Science World. This so-called Dunsmuir Connector would carry some similarities to New York City’s High Line Park.

Northeast False Creek

Artistic rendering of Northeast False Creek’s new public spaces, including the Concord Pacific development. (Concord Pacific)

Artistic rendering of Northeast False Creek’s new public spaces, including the Concord Pacific development. (Concord Pacific)

plaza of nations vancouver 2020 model 1

2020 model of the Plaza of Nations redevelopment. (B+B Scale Models)

 

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