[North Vancouver] Lower Lonsdale | Rebirth of a Neighbourhood

[Rusty Gull]

The Lower Lonsdale neighbourood in the City of North Vancouver is undergoing a significant transformation. This former home to ship-building and other maritime pursuits, once the civic centre of North Vancouver, was infamous in recent decades for its mix of seedy bars and small-town crime.

However, a healthy shot of economic revitalization and gentrification has given Lower Lonsdale new life. Its seaside setting, at the gateway to the North Shore Mountains and a short passenger ferry ride to downtown Vancouver, has bolstered its popularity during the Lower Mainland's recent real estate boom.

Some of the most important projects for Lower Lonsdale:

1. Addition of a new SeaBus to move foot passengers between Lonsdale Quay and Waterfront Station in downtown Vancouver
2. Residential, office and hotel developments as part of "The Pier" project on Esplanade Avenue
3. Potential establishment of "National Maritime Museum" at the foot of the Lonsdale Pier
4. Improvements to Lonsdale Quay Market, including additional retail tenants
5. New retail tenants for Lonsdale Avenue: Burgoo, The District Social Club, Rain City Coffee, Waves, Royal Bank, Bella Candela, etc.
6. North Shore Seawall, part of 2010 Legacies, that will link Lower Lonsdale (as the midpoint) to, ultimately, Horseshoe Bay and Deep Cove
7. The refurbished Streetcar 153, with a planned east-west route to run along the waterfront (starting near Lonsdale Quay)
8. New public marina at Mosquito Creek

With all of this being said, there's still a legacy of the North Shore maritime industry (including the site of the BC Fast Ferries, and Cates Tugboats plying the waters of Burrard Inlet), and some of the area watering holes and pubs still do a brisk business.

The new Pier tower, backdropped by the old shipyards on Burrard Inlet:


Queen Mary Elementary School:


Lonsdale at 2nd Street:


Another North Shore heritage site -- St. Edmunds Church:


Hopefully we can track ongoing developments in Lower Lonsdale on this thread...

[fever]

From yesterday...

[Coldrsx]

^i was there sunday and boy are things slowly starting to change, but man o man there is a ton of wasted opportunity in that area. Literally feels like you go from amazing downtown van to mehville.

[raggedy13]

Originally Posted by Rusty Gull

7. The refurbished Streetcar 153, with a planned east-west route to run along the waterfront (starting near Lonsdale Quay)

A streetcar sounds great. Anybody have further info on this?

[SpongeG]

its going to run to park royal isn't it?

[Rusty Gull]

Originally Posted by Coldrsx

^i was there sunday and boy are things slowly starting to change, but man o man there is a ton of wasted opportunity in that area. Literally feels like you go from amazing downtown van to mehville.

Keep in mind that much of this was abandoned industrial land just over a decade ago.

I actually appreciate the small-town ambience and grittiness of Lower Lonsdale. You won't find your Bikram yoga studios, Paris Hilton wannabes or designer baby stores there; nor the mega-malls or big box stores.

I hope that Metro Vancouver can always have throwback neighbourhoods like these.

[Rusty Gull]

From the North Shore News:

Wheels rolling on plan for Streetcar 153

Council ponders running heritage car on less expensive flat route
Heidi Castle and Joanna Habdank, North Shore News

Published: Sunday, August 19, 2007

There's plenty of desire to keep the wheels rolling on a piece of the City of North Vancouver's history.

City council is taking a look at re-enlisting the services of streetcar No. 153, a lovingly refurbished trolley that first saw service in 1908 on tracks that ran from the foot of Lonsdale Avenue to 23rd Street. Currently it's stationed underneath the Fen Burdett Stadium in Mahon Park.

A few years ago, the city completed a study at a price tag of $75,000 that found the initial investment to get the car zipping along its old Lonsdale route wound be $21 million. That didn't include the operational cost, which would be substantial and have to include professionally-trained engineers to manage the tricky North Shore hills, said Mayor Darrell Mussatto.

City of North Vancouver Mayor Darrell Mussatto and Coun. Craig Keating take a trip down memory lane inside the refurbished Streetcar 153, currently in storage while plans for its future are discussed.

But there is some hope the car could run as a vintage streetcar service on an east to west flat route from Park and Tilford Shopping Centre to Kings Mill Walk -- or some portion of that stretch.

Another possible route is running it from the foot of Lonsdale westward to the Automall site, said Mussatto. That would involve working with Squamish Nation and CN Rail since tracks would likely have to be laid close to or beside the occupied lands.

The cost of running the streetcar on a flat route is a considerably lower $4 million, but that still means the city couldn't take on the full cost. "It would probably be a combination of municipal and private sector and voluntary contributions," said Mussatto.

He acknowledged that the city has financial priorities other than the streetcar. "But," he said, "I still think that we can find a way to get the streetcar back in action."

While the car has been out of service since 1947, and was most recently used as a chicken coop in the Fraser Valley, it was the object of a four-year grand passion by Bob Booth, an engineer living in North Vancouver, to see it restored. He volunteered his time and restored the streetcar to its original condition. The cost of the restoration came at around $200,000.

"It's quite an amazing job he did," noted Mussatto. He added that the electric streetcar is important for the city as a reminder of its rich history and the idea of sustainable transportation.

Over the years many people including former mayors Jack Loucks and Barbara Sharpe pushed to see the streetcar put back into action. "It was a number of people's labour of love," said Mussatto.

Bringing No. 153 back to life fits in with the development in Lower Lonsdale and the time is right given that it will be the streetcar's centenary next year, he said.

Streetcar No. 153 has struck a chord with many people, said Mussatto.

"I put forward the motion, which passed unanimously, to get the streetcar as a static display or to get it working," he said.

"Whether or not it runs east or west it should come out of mothballs and be put where people can see it," said Coun. Barbara Perrault during a recent council discussion on the topic.

Council voted unanimously in favour of exploring options for streetcar No. 153.

© North Shore News 2007

[officedweller]

From the North Shore News:

http://www.canada.com/northshorenews...31d581&k=38354

400-foot waterfront tower proposed
Lower Lonsdale plan includes art gallery, floating swimming pool

Heidi Castle, North Shore News
Published: Wednesday, October 17, 2007

A 36-storey residential tower inspired by the Princess Louise, a 1921 luxury passenger liner built in North Vancouver's Wallace Shipyard's, is the signature piece in a new development proposal for the foot of Lower Lonsdale.

If approved, the city will enjoy an A-list of public amenities in exchange for a density transfer from public to private land. Besides a LEED silver-certified residential and commercial tower hooked up to the Lonsdale Energy Corporation's geothermal heating grid, those amenities include a new, prominent, waterfront home for Presentation House Gallery, a public floating swimming pool built on a new public wharf extending into the harbour south of Lonsdale Avenue, a unified city seawall walk and public art opportunities. Long-range plans call for a new home for the Whistler Rocky Mountaineer, a repositioned SeaBus terminus and bus loop, and an east-west route for the city's historic streetcar 153.

The area under consideration includes land held by Millennium Developments and the City of North Vancouver. Combined, the property is referred to as Site 8 and sits north of Carrie Cates Court, south of Esplanade Avenue and east of Rogers Avenue.


A conceptual illustration of a proposed 36-storey tower, art gallery and floating swimming pool just west of the foot of Lonsdale Avenue.
graphic supplied

Site 8 will be further combined with other city-owned property at the foot of Lonsdale Avenue for a total area of 11,076.2 square metres (2.75 acres).

The proposal is to transfer the density off both city-owned parcels and concentrate it on the Millennium property and then use the city land for amenity development.

That density shift would see a potential 7.1 FSR (floor-space ratio -- a ratio that determines the building footprint relative to the lot it sits on) in the one corner of the combined parcels up from the current 2.6 FSR of each individual site.

The city's official community plan designates the land as "town centre mixed use" with a building height of 40 feet. The Lower Lonsdale planning study suggested upping the height limit to 75 feet but retained the 2.6 FSR.

"This is an important site in the history of North Vancouver," Gregory Henriquez of Henriquez Partners Architects told city council Monday. "The goal of our design is to try and bring back a resolution to this historic water's edge and find a way in the 21st century to make North Vancouver as significant and important a city as it can be."

This proposal is about community and will enliven the city's waterfront, he said. "The poetry for our architecture always comes from the nature of the site."

Initial view studies show less than 10 per cent blockage which is less than the 15 per cent acceptable in the City of Vancouver, said Henriquez.

The proposal builds on a concept that originated with a five-year-old city-driven study, known as "Where the mountains meet the community and the sea," he said.

Highlights of the four-phase proposal begin with building the residential tower, relocating the Railway Museum to Waterfront Park, while developing some of the city land for public space, a new home for Presentation House Gallery, and the proposed new wharf and pool.

The subsequent phases and longer term vision anticipate the Whistler Mountaineer Station move to Waterfront Park, building the route for the city's historic street car, the relocation of the SeaBus terminal to the foot of Lonsdale and a renovated and repositioned bus circle.

Joining Site 8 with the foot of Lonsdale is something council has endorsed, said Coun. Craig Keating. It's something the city has encouraged for a long time, he said.

"It's a very intriguing proposal," said Keating. However, there are many hurdles and a lot of hard work ahead for the developer, he said. "The community has to put this in some kind of context. If this were a proposal pure and simply for a 40-storey building and nothing else that would be a different thing."

The amenity list needs to be considered he said. Keating said he likes a pool in Lower Lonsdale, a stop for the Rocky Mountaineer, a hook up to LEC and a new home for the Presentation House Gallery.

"That gallery has done more in a sense to advertise the City of North Vancouver internationally than anything else," he said. "It's a world class photo arts gallery that has received many awards and to have a new waterfront home for that would be terrific."

"I don't know that your current plan makes the best use of that whole area," said Coun. Bob Heywood. "I think there's a lot of work to be done in reshaping the presentation of this very important area for the city."

Heywood said he's not convinced the city needs another public plaza when one is part of the Maritime Museum proposal just east of the foot of Lonsdale.

Additionally, the half-block of business to the east of Site 8 is excluded from the plans, he said. "It would seem to me that if we're going to create some space down there we need to involve that half of the block."

"The scope of amenity that's going to lend any support to this kind of project is going to be pretty significant," he said.

"We are in the genesis of this design stage," said Henriquez.

On the issue of the small scale buildings to the east, Henriquez said his design responds to their scale and that they are integral to the heritage of the neighbourhood and should be left or possibly restored in similar scale.

"I gasped a little," admitted Coun. Barbara Perrault at the 400-foot proposed tower. But, she said she likes the amenity list. "This (Presentation House Gallery) is a very sophisticated and very, very substantial gallery that we have in this community and we have not sung it's praises loud enough," said Perrault. "It needs a decent home."

She also supported the concept of the pool, but would like to see a 50-metre version if possible.

Coun. Pam Bookham said unless the public strongly supports the proposal she could not support that level of height on the city's waterfront.

"The doubling of the height of this building, even for the very worthwhile amenities that have been proposed I think is going to be a very difficult public sell," she said.

Council carried a motion for an Official Community Plan amendment and rezoning application, with Bookham opposed, that will see the proposal move to the public discussion stage.

Coun. Sam Schechter was absent.

© North Shore News 2007

Reach for the sky

North Shore News
Published: Wednesday, October 17, 2007

THE ramifications of the latest development proposal for Lower Lonsdale before City of North Vancouver council are huge.

A 400-foot tower where zoning exists for 40 feet (and only a suggestion for 75 feet) is going to make some upslope residents unhappy about their loss of view.

On the other hand, the benefits that the development would provide the city are enticing: a waterfront home for Presentation House Gallery which has long wanted a move to a purpose-built home in a higher traffic area as well as another waterfront pier with the novel concept of a floating swimming pool.

Residents adjacent to Waterfront Park will not be thrilled about the concept for the park to be the Whistler Mountaineer's terminus, but the plan makes commercial sense in terms of attracting tourists to North Vancouver. Reorienting the SeaBus terminal and our incredibly ugly bus loop should also improve the North Van experience for visitors.

But the bigger picture is whether the size of the proposed 36-storey building is appropriate for its Rogers Avenue location and whether the tower block is the appropriate defining image for Lower Lonsdale. It would be a bold statement not just from a North Vancouver perspective, but also as seen from the Vancouver side of the inlet.

We have written recently about the need for citizens to participate in local government. The public process on this one requires all city residents to get involved -- and council to assess that response accurately.

© North Shore News 2007

Sept 20th, 2007 - Global Air Photo of the area. The site is just above the red roofed buildings in this pic:

[Rusty Gull]

Lower Lonsdale: the next Yaletown?
By Alyssa Noel - North Shore Outlook - November 01, 2007

Forty years ago it was North Vancouver’s poorest neighbourhood, but today all signs indicate Lower Lonsdale is poised to become the next Yaletown, according to some community players.

Their evidence lies in the migration of businesses, a recently-proposed 400-foot tower development and new RBC bank slated to open this week.

The bank, according to City of North Vancouver Mayor Darrell Mussatto, is a harbinger of things to come.

“When banks and grocery stores such as IGAs, leave the area, it’s not a good thing,” he said. “We’ve got a situation now where we’ve got the IGA Market there and we’ve got a bank in the area and other banks looking in the area. So, it’s a very positive sign and I think it shows people like living in Lower Lonsdale and businesses are seeing that opportunity.”

Simone Doucette, manager at the new bank, said with over 1,000 small businesses in the area, RBC saw a prime opportunity to open a new branch. “Basically, the bank has seen an opportunity in a growing market,” she said. “We did have a bank in the market several years ago, but of course it was at a time when the market was quite recessed. Several years later, the market is growing and we see an opportunity.”

Naomi Yamamoto, president of the North Vancouver Chamber of Commerce, said the symbiotic relationship between residents and businesses is fueling growth. As more residents move into the area, more stores and amenities are built, which attracts even more new residents. She pointed to the Moustache Cafe, a popular eatery moving from its Marine Drive location down to Lower Lonsdale, as an example.

“I think we’ll see a Yaletown-like atmosphere. And I think people will choose to live in this area because of our ease of transportation. You’ll be able to take the SeaBus into Vancouver for meetings. We have absolutely great restaurants opening up and I think what we’re seeing is a village-type feel,” she said.

That atmosphere has also caught the attention of Millennium Developments and Henriquez Partners Architects. Recently, they presented city council with a proposal for a new development at the foot of Lonsdale that includes a 36-storey residential tower, a floating public swimming pool built on a new wharf, a seawall walkway and a new waterfront home for the Presentation House Gallery. Future plans would include relocating the Whistler Rocky Mountaineer station to Waterfront Park, repositioning the bus loop and SeaBus station and creating a new east-west route for a historic streetcar that is being refurbished by the city.

Mussatto responded to the proposal with both excitement and wariness. “My reaction is that I certainly encourage re-development. We’ve been working on re-development of the shipyard site and in Lower Lonsdale for years,” he said. “But we haven’t heard from the public yet, so I’ll be interested to see how the public responds. There’s some positives to the proposal and some challenges. And I’m convinced we can come out with a win-win.”

While glossing up an area that houses low-income families runs the risk of gentrification, Mussatto maintained that re-development will include mixed housing.

“One of the priorities of our council is to make sure we have affordable housing,” he said. “It’s not just an area for the wealthy, but for everyone.”

[deasine]

Streetcar Information:

Lonsdale Streetcar Feasibility Study – came out of Lonsdale Corridor Master Plan. One of the recommendations was to use the streetcar as a means of linking the 3 areas of the corridor. A problem with the streetcar is equipment required for the streetcar to climb up the grade on Lonsdale to 23rd. Another issue is the need to create destinations. There is nostalgia about Streetcar No. 153 and many would like to see it used on its original route. Consultants examined the feasibility and it was determined that the cost was over $21M. The streetcar only goes as far as 14th Street. TransLink does not support this option as part of an integrated transit service since their current services are satisfactory for Lonsdale. No. 153 Streetcar is actually too fragile to make the route and it is not feasible to bring the car up to today's safety standards. Fuel Cells were contemplated but because of their size, they were ruled out. There are reproduction cars that are more serviceable than authentic cars. An East-West route was also considered. It would be less costly ($5M), but the destinations are not that attractive and the service would not get people up Lonsdale. At this point the plan is to go to public consultation. The study identifies a means of funding through taxation of Lonsdale businesses and adjacent property owners, which may not be popular.

Source: City Archives

[Rusty Gull]

Open house information below.

Hopefully some of the interested SSP forumers can contribute to the discussion and show their support for this good-looking development, because it's increasingly looking like the Nimbies are -- surprise, surprise -- getting ready to put up the mother of all fights against this.

A group called the "Lonsdale Citizens Association" is trying to quash the proposal already. They have been circulating petitions in the area.

From the City of North Vancouver website:

Several opportunities are being provided for early public input as follows:

Public Open House #1
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
12:00pm 5:00pm
City Hall, 141 West 14th Street

Public Open House #2
Thursday, November 15, 2007
4:00pm 8:00pm
City Hall, 141 West 14th Street

Town Hall Meeting
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
5:30pm - Open House
6:30pm - Presentations & Input
Lonsdale Quay Hotel
3rd Floor, 123 Carrie Cates Court

[yogiderek]

Had a great article today on Lower Lonsdale. It was very supportive of the new tower.

[Rusty Gull]

Here it is...
-----

In North Vancouver, the new Lonsdale slowly emerges

TREVOR BODDY
From Friday's Globe and Mail
November 23, 2007 at 11:35 AM EST

North Vancouver's Lonsdale may be Metro's most under-achieving major street. First West Broadway, then West 4th and now West 10th have seen retail renewal and rows of new flats above shops. Vancouver's Commercial Drive and Main Street, plus Marine Drive in West Vancouver have joined this surge towards more interesting, re-jigged, pedestrian-friendly arterials. South Fraser and Victoria Streets are miracles of a different sort — alive with the immigrant communities that surround them, home to some of the best value grocers and restaurants in our entire metropolis. Just don't tell anyone about these gems, lest these Eastside streets be Starbuck-ed and sushi-ed into conformity.

Then there is sad-sack Lonsdale. With strings of franchise outlets and national chain stores relieved only by a welcome Persian deli or café here and there, Upper Lonsdale might as well be in Kamloops or Prince George. Lower Lonsdale once had character, but that was knocked out when key historic buildings were demolished and the small shops migrated away. This is because sites were acquired by big-time developers ramping the street and its environs up to some big-time future — one that has no space for mere Mom & Pop produce or hardware stores.

There is now a raft of new medium- to high-rise development flanking either side of Lonsdale, from the waterfront up the hill to above 20th Street. North Vancouver has opted for strict height limits on these condo towers, tending to make them wider and bulkier than their cousins across Burrard Inlet. City planning controls also mandate no more than three storeys for nearly the length of Lonsdale, keeping it a low-scale vestige — a hamster run surrounded by squat caged gorillas. Lonsdale has thus become the inverse of Vancouver's redeveloped arterials, where density is being added along commercial avenues, shaping new walls for the single family zones within.

The biggest changes of all are currently under construction or awaiting approval for the very foot of Lonsdale, between the yarrows where victory ships were once built and the quay where the SeaBus comes and goes. Here resides the true 900 pound gorilla of the entire North Shore — the massively gruff, multi-block, multiple-building development called The Pier, from Pinnacle International.

While it is true that the City of North Vancouver extracted a number of public benefits from this monster — waterfront lands and industrial building shells for a possible Maritime Centre, a widening and embellishment of The Esplanade, which it flanks — one of the benefits they did not extract is superior architecture and urban design.

The Pier's façades, now coming into view as construction completes for some of them, are an amalgam of Victoria-style brick fuzziness with Yaletown's glass-is-grand monotony. While some of this is a matter of taste, The Pier's weak urban design on one of the Lower Mainland's most prominent and interesting sites will, I feel, be regretted for decades. Amongst many questionable urban design decisions by I.B.I/Hancock-Bruckner architects was the pushing of a condo-hotel building almost flush to the corner of Lonsdale and The Esplanade.

With this key intersection visually constricting and entering into The Pier's shadow much of the day. We are losing a delightful and dramatic shift of vista when walking down Lonsdale's hill — the splendid diagonal views out to the former shipyards, and beyond these, towards the eastern stretches of Vancouver's own waterfront. Why would the City of North Vancouver to continue to hold down the height of Lonsdale's buildings up hill, then lift them way up right here, where their sunlight- and view-gobbling impact is by far the greatest? For a large site with other options, this is beyond baffling.

Across Lonsdale from The Pier is a very different urban design approach is proposed by Millennium Group, with Henriquez Partners as architects. A spire where The Pier proposes a wall of condos, all apartments are consolidated here into a single extra-tall tower, set in mid-block where it should be to minimize impact on Lonsdale and uphill neighbours (who will complain anyway, such being the price of the cult of the view in our town.) Project architect Gregory Henriquez tapers the top of the condo tower like the prow of a ship (in fact, the locally-famous S.S. Princess Louise), serving both to reduce the visual impact of penthouse floors, and to craft an icon denoting local history.

It is pure schmaltz to memorialize this long-moored vessel which spent most of its service life serving up fried seafood dinners, but nonetheless, the urban design and public benefit package offered up by Millennium Developments is impressive. Conceived in part to compensate for the negative impacts of The Pier, they propose terminating Lonsdale in a lively waterfront plaza, with views to the comings and goings of Seabuses, tugboats, the to-be-revived Wallace Shipyards, and the entire drama of a Vancouver harbour that is increasingly sealed off from its citizens by marinas and insensitive waterside development.

Hovering above this plaza the developer intends to pay for construction of a permanent home for the Presentation House Gallery, the first and likely only key cultural institution to find a home on our waterfront. With stakes upped by the design mistakes nearby, the proposal goes to North Vancouver's city council for re-zoning approval and height cap exemption early next year, and may be the last, best chance to forge the architectural landmark the North Shore has long needed.

[Rusty Gull]

Mussatto upfront on term's 'failures'

Bill Bell
Special To North Shore News

Sunday, March 16, 2008

It has been more than a year and half since I last sat down with City of North Vancouver Mayor Darrell Mussatto.

Mussatto was elected as a city councillor in the early '90s and was known for his "boyish good looks." He can now be best described as "distinguished" -- looking as if the pressure of office has brought grey in his hair and a few worry wrinkles.

"Yes the grey hair wasn't there two years ago," Mussatto said as he sat down at the Bravo Cucina restaurant on Lonsdale, ready to be grilled by his former colleague. I had warned him that I wasn't going to be easy on him and that the focus of my questions would be on what he thought were the biggest failures of his first term of office.

But first Mussatto, in a self assured manner, wanted to lay down his own rules. He was going to pay for lunch and, more importantly, it was not going to be paid for by the taxpayers.

I threw out my first pitch. I started with the word "homelessness," and before I even got the next word out Mussatto was emphatic. "Yes," he said, "We in the region (Metro) have failed. We have not done enough."

Mussatto was not going to take all the blame though, pointing out that the root of much of the homelessness problem on the North Shore was mental illness and drug dependency; often both combined. "It is a health issue that has to be addressed by the province. It has to be priority," Mussatto said.

"If we get the funding, the city will provide the zoning to build a facility," he vowed.

"The entire region is behind this -- except Burnaby," Mussatto said, taking a shot at fellow NDP Mayor Derek Corrigan. "North Vancouver must have a facility to help our people on the North Shore." The facility, according to Mussatto, would be built at Lions Gate Hospital.

"Transit!" Mussatto said before I asked my next question. "Transit and the lack of progress in getting improvements for the North Shore has been a big disappointment."

The mayor gave no quarter, saying that the North Shore had not been given its rightful share of transit dollars, but to lay the blame at his feet was not fair. "The expensive RAV line was something that I was against and the former Mayor (Barbara Sharp) was in favour of," Mussatto said. "A lot of our transit dollars went there."

The third big failure? Lower Lonsdale.

"Bill, when you were on council you always argued that the city wasn't doing enough for the children and families in Lower Lonsdale. You were right, and the statistics show that there are more families in that area with young children than in any other in the city," Mussatto said.

"We need to do something, and we need to something fast," Mussatto said.

The mayor floated several ideas, placing the emphasis on the expansion and utilization of the North Shore Neighbourhood House. "We have to make the area family-friendly. The school board should be looking at a new school in the area. The city needs to rethink Waterfront Park; perhaps a Mahon Park-style water park in the area. The completion of the waterfront walkway where families can skate, bike and skateboard together!" Mussatto became animated, almost excited.

Even though I hadn't said a word, Mussatto blurted out, "You're right, Bill, we have failed the families in Lower Lonsdale, and something has to be done about it."

You would think he was running again for office. Well actually he is.

The most awkward moments during the interview came when I asked how he felt about a certain council member; Mussatto responded 'My mother always taught me that if you have nothing good to say about a person you should keep quiet." There was silence for the next two minutes at the table.

We finished the interview on a strange note as Mussatto praised the environmental record of Gordon Campbell's Liberal government and criticized his NDP colleagues, "I don't know what they stand for."

I certainly have not dealt with a mayor who was as forthright and open to acknowledging his failures as Mussatto. Where there are three major failures, Mussatto and his council have accomplished many things. I will talk about them in a future column.

In the meantime, the mayor did live up to his promise: he paid for the lunch with his own credit card and not the Visa card issued by the city.

bill@on the roadin.com

© North Shore News 2008

[officedweller]

Global Air Photos shots from January 31, 2009:


http://www.globalairphotos.com/large...ale/2009/045/2


http://www.globalairphotos.com/large...ale/2009/004/2

[Rusty Gull]

Thanks OfficeDweller.

If you look closely you can see the Spirit Trail waterfront path coming together near the BCIT Maritime campus and Mosquito Creek Marina.

[Jonovision]

What is that construction site right on the water with all the cranes?

[LeftCoaster]

That's the pier, the development that was stalled for a while but has restarted work

[Jonovision]

Any renderings?

[Pinion]

Originally Posted by Jonovision

Any renderings?

I've been trying to work on a thread for the Pier development but the info available is so bad/non-existent that it's frustrating. It's difficult to even find pics of the three completed condos of phase 1 and 2 north of Esplanade.