Standing at 61 floors and 200 metres the Living Shangri-La hotel located on Georgia and Thurlow soars past Vancouver’s current tallest building the One Wall Centre. Further, this is the first North American location for the Shangri-La hotel chain with future expansion plans to New York and San Francisco. Vancouver was the clear choice as it is known around the world as an excellent Asia-Pacific gateway city. However, the Urban Dweller believes the 2010 olympics had something to do with it as well.
The tower itself will be a mixed used residential/hotel development with the first 15 floors containing 120 hotel rooms at approximately 550 -750 sq feet each. Floors 16-42 will be 227 general live-work units and the remaining floors will feature private access residential. The prices of the units will be even out of The Urban Dwellers reach, however the Suburban Don will use his casino winnings to purchase a unit or two.
The height of the tower has punctuated Vancouver’s relatively flat skyline. As impressive as that is, The Urban Dweller is still hoping that the city will lift the height restrictions for atleast one 300 metre tower in the downtown core, sprinkled around a few more in the 200 metre range. Maybe 10 -15 years from now if we (skyscraper enthusiasts) are lucky. The towers triangular shape was done to avoid view cone restrictions and the developer renovated the Coastal Church next door for additional height and density.
Some of the retail component of the tower will feature an Urban Fare store, a few high end restaurants and rumoured Burberry store as well. The Urban Dweller hopes that the Burberry rumours are true as Vancouver could use more high end fashion stores. The hotel is set to open in January 2009.
For more information check out livingshangri-la.com
(photo credit: SFUVancouver at skyscraperpage.com)
VancityBuzz.com
Follow Channels and Categories