A new building and its new neighbourhood have an important relationship, equally important one to the other.
A new building is proposed in my Nanaimo Old City neighbourhood. It's to be dedicated market rental. It's a redevelopment of what was the City Hall Annex building, found to be below acceptable earthquake soundness.
The
Franklyn Street Apartments site is in my neighbourhood and the project could be a very welcome addition to it. In the photo above it's the blue trimmed corner building lower right. Its current neighbours are the law and accounting firm MNP (one of Nanaimo's most impressive buildings), a Keg restaurant, the 1950's Nanaimo City Hall, the new annex directly behind City Hall (one of Nanaimo's ugliest and most
insensitively sited buildings), well maintained and updated heritage houses (now offices) and surface parking, lots and lots of surface parking.
Nearby, but not quite in interconnected proximity, a pocket of a good mix of medium density residential, specialty shops and offices. The neighbourhood has become a fledgling "foodie" destination. I live in this pocket and it suits the missus and me just fine.
Here's two City of Nanaimo initiatives that will benefit both the neighbourhood and this project.
1. A Wallace Street redesign to become Nanaimo's first truly "complete" street; 2. the creation of a new urban square on our City Hall grounds (currently a parking lot which eliminated a sidewalk for its creation (!). Illustrations from the Downtown Urban Plan document.
As can be seen in the aerial photo the original building extends to the
outer edge of the property line and the redeveloped building appears to
maintain this footprint. This is a corner building which will set the
build-to line, the "street wall" for the further development of Franklyn
and Wallace Streets. The 2008 Nanaimo
Downtown Urban Design Plan and Guidelines
calls for a further setback of 3 meters. More on this in another
post. I'll try to find out why the new building doesn't comply with the
design guidelines. (Clik image to enlarge.)
Next post will look at the redesign of Wallace Street as Nanaimo's first complete street.
Update:
The
staff report (link below) clarifies the building set back: I was concerned about the
building's set back from the property line to anchor an alignment for
future buildings along both Franklyn and Wallace. The drawings appeared
to show the same footprint as the original
building which is not set back from the property line. Howver, the staff report makes clear that the old building
will be demolished and the new one will conform to the set backs. Happy
to see this, it will make a wider more comfortable pedestrian realm and
will be especially important in the future.
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