[FONT size=4]I have seen the future, and it's gentrified[/FONT]
VANCOUVER[!-- /dateline --] -- Condo king Bob Rennie is marketing his latest project as an "intellectual property" for the smart investor -- although some would say the planned Woodward's complex is a social experiment you'd be stupid to sink your money into.[!-- /Summary --] "I agree it's not for everybody," says Mr. Rennie, who moves condos in Vancouver the way Winchell's moves doughnuts.
"But judging by the response we've seen so far, there are lots of people who would love the opportunity to live there."
Some would say that there is no there there.
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That the city's Downtown Eastside, where the Woodward's building stands, is a human wasteland unsuitable for habitation by society's mainstream.
If it is not that, it is certainly the country's most notorious neighbourhood. A simmering cauldron of human pain and misery (and drug addicts, prostitutes and alcoholics) that has depressed and perplexed generations of civic leaders who have struggled over the years to make it better.
On any given day, you might see someone openly shooting up drugs in an alleyway, or a drunk passed out on a sidewalk, or a stiletto-heeled prostitute soliciting a client, or a person with a mental problem walking the streets in bare feet and pyjamas. Life scenes that Mr. Rennie has chosen to market as "authentic," "cutting edge," "heritage," "character."
"This is the future," one of the ads for the Woodward's condominium complex says.
Ah, let's hope not.
But the Woodward's project does represent, in my view, the best hope yet for the most troubled postal code in the country.
Years ago, Woodward's was the biggest, most successful department store in Vancouver.
It closed in 1993 and the landmark is now being redeveloped to include 536 market-priced condos and 200 non-market social housing units, as well as office, retail and non-profit community space. It will also be the home of Simon Fraser University's new School for the Contemporary Arts.
Most of the market units range from the low $200,000s to the high $600,000s. There are a few for $800,000 or so. They vary in size, up to 1,200 square feet. They are gorgeous if not predictable, with oak floors and stone countertops and stainless-steel appliances. Finishings, in other words, that are de rigueur in the chic, post-modern world of condo interior design.
More than 5,600 people from all parts of the globe phoned or registered on-line to request more information about the units. Last Wednesday, Mr. Rennie opened the phone lines for people who wanted to take the next step and actually purchase. He says he had 30 people answering calls for six hours. Six hundred callers were issued wristbands, which they will have to show when they take the final plunge on Saturday. That's the day prospective buyers become purchasers.
(There were reports this week that people were selling their wristbands on the Internet. Mr. Rennie says identification requirements make the wristbands effectively non-transferable.)
Mr. Rennie describes the response to the Woodward's project as unprecedented. We'll have to take his word. He says he won't be surprised if every one of the 536 units is spoken for this weekend. An indication, he added, that there are a lot of forward-thinking people who believe this is the future, or at least the future of this area. That this mix of market and social housing, which the city is championing, is the way to finally clean up an area of town often described as a human hellhole.
Why? Because developers aren't moving in and callously kicking out the poor -- which would get little support and fail -- but instead are creating an environment where the fortunate and less fortunate live side by side. At least in theory. It is a more slowly evolving form of gentrification, one that has already begun in neglected areas around the Downtown Eastside, such as the Gastown tourist district.
Mr. Rennie believes that many of the shabbier hotels in the Downtown Eastside, the ones that offer single rooms for those on social assistance, will be bought over the next 10 to 20 years and replaced by condo complexes like Woodward's, offering a mix of market and non-market housing.
And that will continue the transformation of the area.
For the foreseeable future, the Downtown Eastside will continue to be home to the poor and downtrodden. Even to drug addicts and prostitutes. But over time, and with pressure from the new, middle-class residents who will have a vested interest in seeing that their neighbourhood is safe and clean, the look of the area will change.
And I think for the better.
