The approved DC2 for Horne and Pitfield has an expanded sidewalk along 103 Avenue taking up the parking spaces for trees and street furniture.
In some places from 102 to 109 Street, 103 Avenue is 7 lanes wide with parking. That's insane. There's definitely room for expanded sidewalks with trees, which in my mind was a huge missed opportunity when they did microsurfacing of the road last year. Not asking for a full new streetscape, just wider sidewalks with some trees. All you have to do is take out the left turning lane.
There's really only 4 is lanes and parking, but the parking spills over to the outside lanes with bigger vehicles which happens often. What turning lane? Its pretty much converted parking, you can't count it as an extra lane. The road doesn't get any wider, and often times there's really only a vehicle length or so left to the intersection due to parked vehicles to get into said turning lane. And removing lanes with out removing parking will still result in problem's for people that live on 103ave.
Like I said if the shoe was on the other foot for some of you the story would be a lot different. It's really easy to push for something when it doesn't effect you.
Horne and Pitfield was sold to Westrich, yet to see any info on their plans for the site other than ~40ish stories.
There’s a good chance to be 2 maybe three towers built at the intersection of 103ave and 104st in the next 7-10 years. I don’t doubt Westrich will build something, jury’s out on the Wexford site. Adding even more density to probably the densit residential couple blocks in the city.
And like I and others have said with the LRT running down 102nd odds are that will increase traffic on 103rd ave.
What 103rd ave really needs is street front retail or anything other than parkades. The road size suits its needs for the density when required. Just the stucco facades (except for HSBC) of the parkades and the empty lot. All there really is for street interaction is a dilapidated hotel/dive bar, crystal glass, and a couple of one story converted old warehouses to offices. That’s all there is south of the ID, some trees will just be lipstick on the farmers ugliest pig. There is already tree's along 103ave in front of the CC west parkade and accouple by the HSBC parkade, and last summer there was a planter with a tree Infront crash hotel at the corner of 103ave and 103st, in the past there has been flower beds put out as well. Don't think there was last summer due to the paving, and any existing side walk beautification has been restricted by the utilities construction for ID and the LRT. The road and side walks were tore up continuously until recently. most of the your problems are not with the road size it’s more what’s along it.
But then there’s also the problem of the amount of already empty CRUs in the core. Trying to have your cake and eat it too is hard.
. It's up 36% in the last year.
