Plaza of Nations Redevelopment and BC Place

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CONNECTICUT YANKEE
prospect
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http://dailyhive.com/vancouver/plaza-o ... ames-cheng

Any thoughts on this proposal and what type of effect it will have on the gameday experience?
Possible retail(team store) opportunities in conjunction with the Whitecaps?
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Sir Purrcival
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Location: Comox Valley

Truthfully, probably inconsequential in the long run. My reasons for saying this are based largely on the attempts to bring people to the downtown core over the last 30 years. Without a doubt there are far more people living in the downtown core than when BC Place was first built. Has it resulted in bigger crowds for the Lions? No. They struggle now to get crowds as much as they ever have. So, they add a couple more buildings, some residents, some more businesses. I haven't really perceived that any of the new denizens of the core have added greatly to the prosperity of the Lions so why should this addition make for a change? Those that will be living there will be among those few who most would look at as being among the most affluent in the city. Not sure I see a lot of them cramming themselves into plastic seats with any amount of regularity at Lions games. It will just mean more difficulties with parking, people milling around, restaurants that you can't get into and probably wouldn't want to afford at any rate. The plaza has been long overdue for some kind of redevelopment and it will happen. I just don't think it is going to cater to the bulk of folks who attend Lion's games. Not unless there is free parking included (not).
Tell me how long must a fan be strong? Ans. Always.
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mountaincat
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i'd usually be pretty far in the skeptics camp on most recent development in town being of much benefit to the public, but what's presented at that link actually shows a bit of promise IMO... something of the "entertainment district" / "public square" type of place next to the stadium/arena in other cities that you often see on tv packed with fans during the playoffs, even during away games sometimes. if done right this could help make bc place more "human scaled" or "human friendly" in design architecturally, and help draw and keep people in and around the stadium. ideally the pedestrian "spine" in that design would be more of a "public square" for people to gather in rather than just a gauntlet of commerce that people get crammed through... it would be nice if it opened up more towards the water. there are some fresh ideas here for the space i think, but it seems a ways off from reality and there's lots of time to screw it up :hmm:
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