Car-free revival plan for Granville Strip approved by Vancouver City Council

Opinion: 7 factors to carefully consider for the Granville Entertainment District's revitalization

Vancouver City Council to vote on ambitious car-free Granville Entertainment District revitalization plan

This is the proposed car-free transformation of the Granville Entertainment District

Revamped 800 Granville proposal drops offices for rental housing and hotel uses

The Rec Room opens, marking the start of Granville Entertainment District's revival

What could have been: The original plan for a real entertainment centre at Scotiabank Theatre in downtown Vancouver

All of this will be oriented around the eventual transformation of Granville Street’s length across the downtown peninsula — between the northern end of the Granville Street Bridge and West Cordova Street next to Waterfront Station — into a vehicle-free, event-friendly, pedestrian-oriented street, essentially creating a linear plaza. This includes the permanent rerouting of TransLink’s buses from Granville Street to Seymour Street for the northbound direction and Howe Street for the southbound direction.

Initially, there will be a seasonal rerouting of the buses to Seymour and Howe streets during the summer, enabling temporary, prolonged closures of Granville Street to vehicles to accommodate events and other activations. Some bus priority and reliability measures will be implemented on Seymour and Howe streets over the interim, with additional measures made over the long term when the reroutings are made permanent.

“I think it’s a really exciting, really thoughtful plan, and I really think this is a pivotal moment for downtown and for entertainment district,” said ABC city councillor Peter Meiszner during the City Council meeting today.

“It really can be an incredible space and venue for visitors and residents, and I really believe this plan is gonna help us achieve this. It’s really rare to see such alignment on a planning initiative. I don’t think we had a single speaker that was opposed to the plan, it signals how important the street is to our city’s identity, and I think the collective recognition that change is needed.”

Some public speakers — property owners, developers, architects, and real estate specialists — suggested to City Council that amendments should be made to enable some residential uses within mixed-use developments along the entirety of the Granville Strip. They asserted that with the weak office space market and the financial viability challenges of hotel uses on a case-to-case basis, residential uses are needed within the upper levels of the new developments to help subsidize and offset the costs of entertainment, retail, restaurant, and other commercial uses within the lower levels of a building.

However, City staff have prohibited residential uses within the three-block “Entertainment Core” of the Granville Street Plan — between Smithe and Davie streets. There is a general belief that noise, lighting, extended overnight business hours, and other late-night activities expected in a vibrant entertainment district would be incompatible with residential uses in very close proximity.

Kerry Bonnis of Bonnis Properties, one of the Granville Strip’s largest property owners and developers, suggested residential uses should be permitted within these blocks, provided that the residential uses are stacked on top of a 90-ft-tall base podium of commercial and entertainment uses as a buffer.

The new plan permits some rental housing and social housing uses for the northernmost (north of Smithe Street) and southernmost (south of Davie Street) blocks of the entertainment district to serve as initial catalyst projects for the street’s revival and to replace some aging SROs and supportive housing. This includes Bonnis’ major mixed-use development proposal for 800 Granville Street, which recently pivoted its primary use from office space to rental housing.

“It will literally be another generation before we see likely office or even significant hotel within that area. And so, our recommendation is that for a limited-time, limited projects that meet all of the criteria of the plan, which would be the non-commercial requirement, the cultural requirement, and where appropriate, the heritage requirement, maybe the residential uses be entertained within that Entertainment Core,” suggested Ryann Bragg, a Principal of architectural firm Perkins&Will, which is the design firm for Bonnis’ 800 Granville Street proposal.

“How are we going to see enough [foot traffic] heat on the street? If we have three blocks, which we’ve seen suffer over the last 20 years, that’s going to be a huge problem within the development of Granville.”

Winki Tam, the Director of Strategy and Development for Downtown Van (the business improvement association for downtown Vancouver) told City Council that her organization supports the strategy to retain and strengthen entertainment uses within the three core blocks. However, she noted that Downtown Van will assess potential residential proposals in this area on a case-by-case basis.

In the end, City Council supported City staff’s area-specific constraints for enabling and restricting residential uses.

“I know that we are undergoing economic challenges with respects to all development right now, and that is often cyclical. We know it’s going to be difficult to bring it forward, but what we need are the hotels and what we need are those daytime uses to bring people in, not simply residences that may not be compatible with that specific area, where people may not be home during the day,” said ABC city councillor Sarah Kirby-Yung.

Under the newly approved plan, greatly increased density through added verticality along the Granville Strip will help improve the financial viability of new developments with major commercial and entertainment uses. The new allowances enable building heights of up to 200 ft. to 400 ft., with the greatest heights designated for the vicinity of where Granville Street meets Robson Street.

But several residential-related amendments by a few city councillors relating to existing SROs and supportive housing were passed, including an amendment that City-owned sites be offered to the provincial government to build new off-site social housing that replaces the existing old SROs and supportive housing.

Some local residents and businesses have attributed the escalation of these challenges in recent years to the provincial government’s pandemic-era decision to buy and convert the Howard Johnson Hotel and the Hostelling International Vancouver Central — previously serving as affordable tourist accommodations that align with the entertainment district’s uses — into permanent supportive housing.

“Since 2020, when the province had the policy to move people from encampments up to Granville Street, we’ve seen a massive increase in disorder, open drug use, people injecting heroin in front of my business while I’m open, and customers and tourists witnessing this. So we really need some fast and decisive action,” Dave Kershaw, the owner of Cabana Nightclub on the Granville Strip. He described the negative impacts of the permanent conversion of these Granville Strip hotels into supportive housing as “the low point” of his 30 years operating a business in the area.

“The nightlife industry stands ready to support our partners here in the City to work with the Province to find solutions to these problems,” continued Kershaw.

There was also a mixed feedback among public speakers and city councillors with regards to closing Granville Street to all vehicles, and relocating the buses to Seymour and Howe streets.

When asked during the meeting, City staff told City Council that, based on a previous analysis conducted several years ago, foot traffic generated by bus passengers boarding and disembarking along Granville Street was considered a “significant” contributor to overall pedestrian volumes, but not the primary driver.

Each weekday, 1,100 bus trips through the Granville Strip move 21,000 passengers on average.

However, concerns were raised about the impact of separating northbound and southbound bus stops — placing them two blocks apart on Seymour and Howe streets — on passenger convenience and the overall transit experience, particularly in terms of seamless connections to SkyTrain services at Granville and Vancouver City Centre stations.

Bus speed and reliability could also suffer greatly without investments in extensive bus priority measures along Seymour and Howe streets, which are busy major arterial routes and often see congestion.

Steve Vanagas, the vice president of customer communications, brand marketing, and public affairs of TransLink, told City Council during the meeting that it is of the public transit’s opinion that the buses should remain on Granville Street, where both directions of the routes currently enjoy a bus-only mall between West Hastings and Nelson streets.

“Transit is the most popular way to get to and from Granville. A year-round, people-first Granville Street must be more than walkable. It must be accessible. That includes transit. In our view, buses can and should remain part of a thriving Granville Street, just as they are on successful pedestrian-priority streets in other cities around the world,” said Vanagas.

“We believe the best outcome includes preserving direct, reliable transit access on the street itself, not permanently removing it. Over the years, TransLink and the City have made joint investments to improve bus priority, accessibility, and overall transit customer experience on this corridor. If Council decides to proceed with permanently removing buses from Granville, we urge you to carefully weigh the costs and consequences.”

Denis Agar, the executive director of the non-profit advocacy group Movement: Metro Vancouver Transit Riders, and a former TransLink bus network planner, added, “Even people that don’t actually take the bus on Granville benefit from the Granville Mall. Delays that happen downtown cascade outwards to neighbourhoods far and wide… I think we’ve all got concerns around whether removing the thousands of bus passengers from Granville will really solve the problems we’re setting out to solve.”

City Council ended up approving amendments directing City staff to explore the installation of a range of bus infrastructure measures along both Seymour and Howe streets for both the initial temporary seasonal and future permanent rerouting of the buses, such as bus bulb sidewalk extensions and bollards at bus stops to protect waiting passengers from vehicles.

Short of directly calling it a bike lane, amendments by OneCity city councillor Lucy Maloney were also passed to explore a vehicle-free Granville Street design that enables “low-speed” bi-directional cycling and micro-mobility access alongside pedestrians — with this ability temporarily restricted when events are held in the area — and to explore options for secured public bike parking.

Prior to the various amendments, City staff estimated that the total capital costs incurred by the municipal government to fund Granville Street Plan’s public realm upgrades, bus public transit changes, cultural infrastructure, and new replacement social housing planning would be between $90 million and $140 million in 2025 dollars.

This will be covered by a mix of developer contributions, City resources, and potential support from the provincial and federal governments and other partners.

“I still think that there is work to do with respects to the transit conversation and the pedestrianization. I want to see a lot more bold pedestrianization on the streets,” said Kirby-Yung, adding that “there will be some challenges, trade-offs, and considerations with respects to relocating transit. I think those are conversations that need to happen before that moves forward.

“We need to actually get live bodies and people coming down before we make some of those significant changes. I think we need to understand what the trade-offs are between transit users, active transportation, and the pedestrianization.”

Green city councillor Pete Fry also put greater weight on the Granville Strip’s longstanding economic issues over public space considerations.

“What’s changed has been the loss of retail and commercial vibrancy. As a result, its success as a pedestrian mall has sort of ebbed and waned. And so, while I’m not totally sold on the idea that a pedestrian mall exclusively is the panacea to revitalize our moribund, once-great namesake street, I appreciate the phased approach that’s contemplated here with the focus first and foremost on revitalizing the businesses and bustle that will make Granville a great street again,” said Green city councillor Pete Fry.

“To my mind and what excites me most about this planning approach is a rethink that will give Granville a 24/7 lens and a vibrant mix of commercial, retail, entertainment and hospitality uses.”

You might also like:
• Opinion: 7 factors to carefully consider for the Granville Entertainment District's revitalization
• Vancouver City Council to vote on ambitious car-free Granville Entertainment District revitalization plan
• This is the proposed car-free transformation of the Granville Entertainment District
• Revamped 800 Granville proposal drops offices for rental housing and hotel uses
• The Rec Room opens, marking the start of Granville Entertainment District's revival
• What could have been: The original plan for a real entertainment centre at Scotiabank Theatre in downtown Vancouver