Selkirk Waterfront winning fans
People now pleased to live and work in area redeveloped after sawmill shut down
Neither Robin Hoesly nor Joan Tinney was thrilled about leaving her downtown office to work in another plunked in a former sawmill site, far away from the Bay Centre and other shopping magnets.
But tunes change. On a recent sunny lunch hour, the two sat on a bench talking about how they have happily replaced a noon shopping habit with walks along a waterfront boardwalk on nice days, and gym workouts when it rains.
They work in a Selkirk Waterfront enclave with a school, coffee shops, about 600 residents living in swish condos and townhouses alongside social housing, a gym, rowing club, a pub, and professional office spaces with light-industrial bookending. Soon, a seniors assisted-living complex will join the mix. There's space for retail shops, should the urge to spend return.
"I was a lunchtime shopper," says Hoesly, admitting she misses it a bit, but not the panhandlers.
About 2,000 people go to the Selkirk area daily, some working, some living there. They go to school, play in rowing sculls and kayaks, or walk, or cycle the Galloping Goose trail that passes in front of the development. And some are looky-loos, arriving via the Inner Harbour Ferry.
Gordon Price, a Vancouver-based commentator on urban development, stumbled upon Selkirk recently.
"It was a bit of surprise, said Price, drawn to the area in connection with a rowing competition.
"I thought it was very good. The relationship to the water and putting in the boat house there and the trestle is terrific. The quality of architecture is really good and the workmanship is very, very good.
"I've seen a lot of those industrial park developments to know that it is way beyond the norm," adds Price, who teaches at Simon Fraser University.
The development -- accessed off Gorge Road from Jutland, Garbally or Dunedin streets -- can still evoke a "Where's that?" response. Increasingly, it is coming into its own as a recognizable community that arose from an industrial brownfield.
Redeveloping industrial sites has huge benefits for communities, said Tammy Lomas-Jylha, executive director of the Canadian Brownfield Network. "They are an exciting way to reinvigorate and revitalize a community. If one developer steps up ... it potentially creates that domino effect in the area."
Hoesly was among the first wave of Ministry of Environment workers who moved in the early 1990s.
There's considerably more traffic in the area since then, and that stands out as the singular concern of people living and working in the area.
Hoesly works in the first of several building blocks that have turned an abandoned Fletcher Challenge operation into a jewel along the Inner Harbour and an example of award-winning urban planning.
The Selkirk Waterfront development is viewed now as a nearly self-contained community living up to its billing: And to think it was originally eyed for a big-box store development.
Heritage conservation champion Stuart Stark relocated his store, Charles Rupert, from Oak Bay Avenue almost a year ago.
"I have more profit and less stress. It's like being on a holiday working down here," said Stark, adding "on Oak Bay Avenue retailers get a lot of entertainment shoppers; the husband and wife coming in with their Starbucks and saying 'You have really nice things' but never buying." Now, customers of his interior-design showroom come with a purpose.
Stark even considers living in the community, although he and his wife have spent years restoring an Oak Bay heritage home.
Selkirk resident Anne Russo did make the jump, downsizing from a five-bedroom home to a low-rise condo. "I liked the idea of increased density.
"We looked at lots of nice places. But I trust the developer. He has a sense of community ... It isn't complete yet, but it recognizes that there is more to a community than a building dropped in."
Nearby resident Rod Fowler spoke at a Victoria council meeting of how the development has returned life and possibilities to the wider area.
Money Mart put its head office here. When the Gorge Rowing and Paddling Centre settled into a boat house, it signalled the waterfront was accessible to the public. One of the Selkirk's architects has bought into the place -- always a good sign.
"It's been interesting being there," said Frank D'Ambrosio, whose spacious, ground-floor office includes an artist's studio.
Recently, representatives of Jawl Holdings Ltd. were at Victoria council for approval for the last development permit on the 24-acre site, which was an industrial site for 80 years. Speaker after speaker enthused about the community that has risen from the sawdust.
The council meeting was a historical footnote because it was the conclusion -- for the city at least -- of a process that started in 1990. When the unanimous vote was taken, council gave the applicant -- represented by Mohan Jawl and D'Ambrosio -- unpredecented applause for bringing the last piece of the Selkirk puzzle to the table.
The project has taken longer than the 10 years originally imagined. Along the way, the Jawls sold four parcels, one as a defensive move because of unfounded fears a surplus of office space was looming. Two residential parcels were sold because of the company's building capacity at the time. The fourth, an assisted-seniors complex, has been turned over to a developer with that expertise.
Fully built out, the area will have 300,000 square feet of office, 350 housing units, 100,000 square feet of retail and four acres of light industrial.
If the community works better than some, it is "because it was under one ownership," said city planner Brian Sikstrom. Even parcels sold off came with design strings attached.
"It was a planned community with some pretty forward-looking policies and innovative design features," said Sikstrom.
While council celebrates, Jawl, whose connection with the property began when he was 15 and worked for Fletcher Challenge, is more circumspect, unwilling to pronounce the project a success until the last three buildings are complete.
"Only once those units are built and occupied will it be known that the mix of uses will work in the way we hoped. ... It will be two or three years. That's when it will be time to celebrate."
The development of the site after Fletcher Challenge closed its sawmill and plywood plant could have been vastly different. After the facility was dismantled in 1989, the first business to grab an option to buy was Price Club, which envisioned the area with a big-box store surrounded by asphalt parking.
"I told [Price Club] it was a bad idea. It was such a special site that the big box would be entirely inappropriate. They were from out of town and didn't understand Victoria that well," said retired city planner Len Vopnfjord.
The rejection didn't sit well in some circles. The B.C. construction industry lambasted the city for being difficult to do business with. In today's context, and considering the mixed community that evolved, it seems easy to dismiss the criticism. But at the time it was a powerful statement lobbed when the economy was barely at a simmer.
The area still carries vestiges of its industrial past. Next door to the Selkirk Development, Budget Steel still noisily crushes cars every weekday. On one lunch hour an office worker sat reading on a bench, in front of the industrial vista, seemingly oblivious to it all.
"I have mixed feelings about Budget," said Jawl. "They were there when we made our proposal, and we didn't proceed on the assumption they would leave."
Instead, the Jawls put light industrial adjacent to the operation, buffering the residential, office and recreational areas.
Jawl notes that when he watches customers at the Glo Europub and Restaurant, not all shun the car-crushing side of the street. "Some are attracted to the views of the water, but a significant number are attracted to what's going on at Budget Steel."
Forty years from now, Budget likely won't be there, predicted Sikstrom, a city planner.
Time, of course, will tell. There was also a time when no one would have predicted the site would have been anything but a sawmill.
Joan Tinney, left, and Robin Hoesly work at Selkirk Waterfront. They weren't thrilled about being moved from downtown, but have come to enjoy their new location on the former site of a sawmill.
Photograph by : Debra Brash, Times Colonist
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