The evolving Canadian cityscape

[Boris2k7]

It would be interesting to do this again next year for Edmonton, comparing 2017 photos with 2010-2011. Tons of changes.

[vanman]

I had no idea maps had this feature. I can already envision myself wasting countless hours on this thread.

Metrotown Burnaby.

[shappy]

That first Burnaby one is quite striking.

[vanman]

That first Burnaby one is quite striking

Burnaby, much like Vancouver and New West, has nowhere to grow but up. Most new development now comes in the form of urban intensification.

Brentwood Burnaby
















Lougheed Burnaby

[vanman]

Coquitlam Centre

[Drybrain]

Another one for Halifax. While I kind of lament the loss of the apartment building on the corner, which had a sort of New Orleanian vibe, it's undeniable how tired-looking parts of the city were in the very recent past and how rapidly that's changing over. (The unfortunate flipside is that there have been a fair number of historical buildings lost to fire or demolition, at what seems to me to be a much more rapid pace than we see in other cities.).

[niwell]

^That's a pretty nice looking development. I also like how they buried the power lines along with the streetscape improvement. Toronto should take a cue from that!

[lio45]

Originally Posted by FrankieFlowerpot

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2013...last_hume.html

That's from nearly two years ago -- how has this case unfolded since?

Unfortunately, cold climates mean that any developer can get rid of an unwanted heritage building against the city's will by having it abandoned then having someone set it on fire in winter. Basically impossible to prove anything in this case. I would even say it's pretty much the normal modus operandi for swiftly getting rid of protected heritage buildings in downtown Sherbrooke.

[Nouvellecosse]

Originally Posted by Drybrain

Another one for Halifax. While I kind of lament the loss of the apartment building on the corner, which had a sort of New Orleanian vibe, it's undeniable how tired-looking parts of the city were in the very recent past and how rapidly that's changing over. (The unfortunate flipside is that there have been a fair number of historical buildings lost to fire or demolition, at what seems to me to be a much more rapid pace than we see in other cities.).

That's one of my favourite new residential developments, but looking at the streetscapes, i actually have to wonder if the before isn't better. The after just looks so anonymous. All the before scene actually needed is for the buildings to be fixed up a little and for a new one of similar scale to fill the gap in between.\\What would have been ideal is if they replaced that lowrise residential building with the green "simulated copper" roof. Talk about ugly...

[someone123]

A few more...

Barrington





Gottingen. There's been turnover in a lot of the businesses here and they've gone noticeably more upscale.

[lio45]

Hey, isn't that the "Green Lantern" building we discussed in here? Hope it's not threatened anymore...

From all these pics, it seems the destruction going on in Halifax nowadays is pretty intense. I would go even further than Nouvellecosse, I do prefer the "before" situation (restorable old buildings with character) to the bland, soul-less "after".

[someone123]

Originally Posted by shappy

Impressive changes in that first Halifax shot. Looks like primarily a residential corridor, any retail? Reminds me of that Charlotte street example I posted above - would be nice to get a few stores open on that stretch (though I think there's a bar a bit down the street).

It's a weird area. It is mostly residential, and the two red buildings on the right are hotel. The older apartments are connected by pedways to buildings on the other side, and there are more shops there, so this street effectively had the rear frontage for these buildings. The little boxes added at street level in the 2015 view are retail spaces, and there's some commercial space in the ground floor of the newer buildings on the right.

There are also a couple more potential highrise development sides behind the camera so this could one day become a fairly busy stretch.

Someone, you can zoom out a bit in street view - try that maybe.

I did that for the last couple pictures. There's also used to be an option that let you change the perspective, so you could do the equivalent of picking different camera lenses. I might try that out again if I have the time later.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by lio45

Hey, isn't that the "Green Lantern" building we discussed in here? Hope it's not threatened anymore...

Yes, that's the one. It is going to be restored/redeveloped soon: http://www.thegreenlantern.ca/

From all these pics, it seems the destruction going on in Halifax nowadays is pretty intense.

I'd agree with this. Halifax has some of the weakest heritage preservation rules in the country. Up until very recently there was no special funding of any kind for heritage buildings, the process to register a building was elective on the part of the owner, and the only limitation on registered heritage buildings was that the city waited one year before issuing demolition permits. This has changed a bit since the demolition period has been extended to 3 years and there are now heritage districts with stricter rules and some tax breaks. But when the Barrington Street district was first implemented it took the city years. During that time developers rushed to get in development agreements that they knew would not be allowed in the new district, and the city granted and grandfathered them. I'm not even sure in the medium term if it was a net positive for heritage preservation.

There's a lot of deliberate neglect of heritage properties. Speculators and developers buy them, stops maintaining them for 5 or 10 years while effectively acting as a slum lord, then argue that they're eyesores that are beyond saving. As you've mentioned there are occasionally mysterious, convenient fires as well. I have a feeling this is slowing down now since the older parts of the city as more desirable than they used to be but there was definitely a bad window of time when the old buildings were relatively cheap and there was a lot of development pressure.

[Mister F]

The usual big cities are going to be mentioned in this thread so I'll change the pace a bit by showing my hometown of Peterborough. Not a lot going on but I did notice some changes last time I was there.

[someone123]

Since I've already spammed this thread with a bunch of posts I might as well do a couple more. Here's an interesting block that has been completely redone by two different developers since 2009.

It was actually a semi-major issue in the city when the developer of the warehouse building in the foreground painted over the "Morse's Teas" sign. Supposedly that was forbidden by heritage regulations but it happened without any apparent consequences. The developer wanted to lease signage to tenants (there actually were big neon signs covering the painted portion in the 70's). One of the tenants announced that they were going to buy the rights and have the sign restored. Not sure if that has happened yet or not. Aside from the sign the building was restored quite nicely.

On the rest of the block there was a redevelopment that didn't preserve much more than the facades of the other buildings. One of the facades was accidentally destroyed during the construction process (it was a stone building constructed circa 1820) and reconstructed. There used to also be a little walkway in the middle of the block but that is gone now.

Net improvement? Probably? The city is definitely getting more built up and is looking less run down, even if the changes aren't ideal in terms of heritage preservation.

[rousseau]

Nice to see the Peterborough updates. You know, for a metro of just 125k, Peterborough seems like it has a fairly substantial and mostly intact downtown area with real charm. I can see why it's become something of a destination for migrants from Toronto looking to cash in on their real estate wealth.

[Brizzy82]

not a whole lot of changes in downtown Winnipeg.

Provencher Bridge view



Winnipeg Convention Centre expansion



Portage Ave



Glasshouse site & parkade



Assiniboine Ave

[Boris2k7]

Originally Posted by Brizzy82

not a whole lot of changes in downtown Winnipeg.

...

Glasshouse site & parkade

This reminds me a lot of the parkade that got built in the middle of Red Deer.

https://goo.gl/maps/8grvuWpFzFD2

[logan5]

Southeast False Creek is where the most drastic change is happening.

2007
[IMG][/IMG]

2015

[IMG][/IMG]

[logan5]

It takes me forever to post images, so I'll go the lazy route...

West 1st ave in Olympic Village area circa 2007

https://www.google.ca/maps/@49.27020...8!8i1664?hl=en

Circa 2015

https://www.google.ca/maps/@49.27020...2!8i6656?hl=en