New major city park planned for Smithe and Richards streets

The Vancouver Park Board is gauging public feedback for a plan to build a sizeable new city park on the eastern corner of Smithe and Richards streets in downtown Vancouver, on the fringes of the Yaletown neighbourhood.

The park will have a footprint of 0.8 acres on a city block lot that is primarily used for ground-level parking. A small two-storey structure that sits in the middle of the site will be demolished this summer.

In contrast, the nearby Yaletown Park is 0.4 acres and Emery Barnes Park further away covers an area of 2.2 acres.

According to the Park Board, the downtown Vancouver peninsula is in need of park space to accommodate the needs of the city core’s growing population. There are over 10,000 residents and 17,000 workers within a five-minute walk of the park site.

The City of Vancouver currently holds a standard of building 2.75 acres of park space for every 1,000 residents. The Park Board claims that other parks in the area experience “crowding,” particularly during the summer months.

The site of the future park will be leased to EasyPark for use as a parking lot until summer 2016 when park construction begins. The park is slated for a 2017 completion.

Local landscape architecture firm Dialog has been contracted to lead the planning and design of the new public space, which will include an art piece by Gareth Moore.

Image: City of Vancouver