by Doug Broome, Twin Rainbows’ delegate to the FCSNA
A Granville Island that rocks around the clock? Well, 18 hours daily to be more precise. Is Granville Island too dead at night? Too many lonely winds blowing sagebrush by straggler souls out at the midnight hour?
Make no mistake. Change is coming to Granville Island (GI). “Repurposing” in jarg-speak. The young postmodern quotient of the Island is about to fall off the cliff as the Emily Carr Art+Design students evacuate to the bleak railway flats, postmodern meets postindustrial, phase two, from the cement plant to the trainlands.
On December 15, planner Sebastian Lippa of CMHC Granville Island shared cookies, coffee, concepts and conundrums with five delegates from FCSNA (and he wants more meetings). Right now, eastside GI is a bit of the poor, drab cousin to the glam active west side and GI wants to change that using the ECUAD buildings.
From the CMHC strategy document: “the North Building would create a destination for arts, entertainment, and food that will be active 18 hours a day, 12 months a year. The first floor of the repurposed building would be fully open to the public, much like the Public Market, and provide access to the waterfront. Approximately half the first floor would be devoted to artists, artisans, and makers, with most studio spaces having windows to allow for public viewing. Another significant portion of this floor would include restaurants, micro- and nano-breweries, and an urban winery, all aimed at attracting a young, nighttime clientele. The second floor would provide a large, live music venue…”
CMHC and the Granville Island Trust also want to create a major night-time destination to attract a younger demographic to reinvigorate the “cutting-edge image”, reinforcing the Island’s role as a centre for arts and culture; right now the Island is a centre for the 50 and above crowd.
Arts and culture thrive across Vancouver but the artists are getting priced out, and part of GI’s mission is to offer affordable space to makers and creators. The original Granville Island plan allocated 14 per cent of floor space to “arts and crafts” but current usage has only five per cent so dedicated.
The Emily Carr north building (three industrial buildings joined) is relatively easy to transform and open up to the water and city views to create a new Island destination and a place for creators and foodies. Here’s the plan under development:
- Over half of the building could be devoted to artists, artisans and makers.
- The first floor would be fully open to the public, much like the Public Market, including access to the waterfront.
- Public access throughout the first floor would be via a new north-south and east-west public circulation system – an “internal street” with a central two storey atrium.
- The building would provide a range of uses that would create vitality 18 hours a day, 12 months a year. Working art studios – including first floor studios that will be visible to public – will provide animation during daytime hours. A live music venue, restaurants, micro and nano-breweries, and an urban winery would provide evening attractions catering to a young demographic.
And here’s the rub, some possible points of contention from the plan:
“On the second floor of the North Building would be a large (~1000 person capacity) live music venue. At street level, the live music venue would have a small lounge as an accessory space. This would operate as a separate bar, and would provide a space that would draw passers-by from the street…”
The “new” north building would be more integrated to the street, similar to the public market. The current north facade is blank and faces a dead area of parking lot. It will become a major entry to the reborn building with studios and a brew pub and a sitting terrace.
The south building was built in the 90s specifically for Emily Carr. The first and mezzanine floors facing Johnston Street could have a pedestrian-oriented public use, such as an art gallery/performance space, while the top two floors would remain an arts school or institution for which it was custom-built. Another option is an arts and culture-related museum.
Until now the west side of the Island has been predominant and the repurposing is to draw people to the east side as well. Everybody from our group agreed that transportation is the major obstacle for our neighbourhood and access needs to be by transit and active transport, not cars. In addition, some concern around the north building potentially becoming an 18 hour a day, 12 months a year destination that create additional late-night noise for local residents was voiced.
Up to now, consultations have mainly been with Island tenants and “key informants” but Sebastian Lippa now wants to involve the False Creek community and we look forward to more information and discussions.
More information on the 2015 Repurposing Strategy can be found here: http://granvilleisland.com/sites/all/files/REPURPOSING-STRATEGY-ECUAD-BUILDINGS%20.pdf
If you would like to share your thoughts, ideas or concerns, please send us an email via our contact form: http://www.falsecreeksouth.org/contact/
Read more News here: http://www.falsecreeksouth.org/news-minutes/
The image was sourced from www.connect.ecuad.ca