STORY about TransportationHousingEnvironment posted on March 21, 2011 by Joseph Jones
How "Revitalization" Demolished Chinatown Housing and Small Shops
Legacy of Massive, Unused Parking Structures
Golden Crown Centre – 163 parking spaces
Golden Crown Centre – side and rear
Sun Wah Centre – 327 parking spaces
Sun Wah Centre – side and rear
Chinatown Plaza Parkade – 1000 parking spaces
"Revitalization" Plaque – Chinatown Plaza Parkade
Chinatown Plaza Parkade used to store new cars!
Inside the Chinatown Plaza Parkade
Also posted by Joseph Jones:
Also in Environment:
Three massive Chinatown parkades, built in the 1990's to "revitalize" the historic neighbourhood by attracting more shoppers, have been mostly empty for years. Worse, building the parkades meant demolition of more than a hundred units of low-income housing and dozens of small Chinatown shops.
On a wall of the Chinatown Plaza Parkade, 180 Keefer, a plaque dedicates the 1000 parking spaces to "the Continuing Vitality of Chinatown." Revitalization was the slogan used by Civic and Chinatown leaders to sell their promise that this massive parkade and others would bring shoppers and prosperity. But, like the Sun Wah (325 spaces) and Golden Crown (163 spaces) built in the same decade, the Chinatown Plaza Parkade sits empty most of the time.
Although the many restaurants and open-sided food stores along Gore and the intersecting streets are filled every day with shoppers, those shoppers apparently don't use the parkades.
The parkades had arisen from discussions among Civic and Chinatown leaders, not necessarily including shopkeepers or low-income residents. Years later the leaders admitted failure of their parkades and initiated campaigns like the Silk Road initiative, the Millennium Gate construction, Memorial Square creation, historic murals, and the Chinatown Panda Mascot campaign. The city of Vancouver helped out over the years by providing Chinatown's own unique signage, lighting, and street furniture. Chinatown leaders still said none of that has worked: Chinatown needs still "more shoppers." Although perhaps they mean "tourists."
An Ideal Solution
Now, having failed to increase Chinatown shopping with parkades, Civic and Chinatown leaders are favouring the ideal solution they probably preferred all along. Presenting the same arguments they used 20 years ago in support of the parkades, they are touting a solution that cannot fail to be a financial success: residential condo towers.
They are guaranteed financial success because construction of condo towers, even if they don't "save Chinatown," will surely make plenty of money for developers, realtors, architects, contractors, lawyers, and land owners.
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Comments
Convert them now!
Since Vancouver is aiming to be the Greenest city in the world, the obvious solution is to convert at least half these parking spaces to other purposes starting with affordable housing.
It is obscene to have non-existant cars housed at public expense while people sleep out in the rain and in overcrowded shelters.