Final designs of Nordstrom flagship revealed

Robson and Howe looks great!  But I hope there is some form of lighting effects / screens on the Granville and Robson corner, to compliment the entertainment atmosphere of the Granville Strip. 

I’m sure if you were willing to buy it and turn it into a public space we’d be happy to let our dogs poop on it and the homeless live in it.

Gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous! Why couldn’t this have happened when Eatons changed to Sears?

Yeah, converting that privately owned block of land into public space is a LITTLE BIT more complicated than you think. If we showed up at your condo/house and suggested that we turn it into public space, you’d likely have a bit of a problem with that.

It looks virtually the same as the previous post. I still feel that it’s disappointing given the opportunity of the site & building. It looks as though they tried to renovated it by retaining as much as possible of the existing structure and primarily focussing on the cladding and envelope rather than considering or addressing history, program and usage. That’s certainly the path of least resistance as far as zoning & permitting goes and likely was the mandate of the client, but when has focussing on bottom line ever resulted in great architecture? Given the prominence of that site, the history of the building, it deserves more. Although people may not like the “dirty marshmallow” it represents an important part of Vancouver’s post-war building history when the city made a transition from railhead and export port to provincial corporate centre. This shared memory deserves more consideration and attention than simply throwing on some contemporary curtain walls and eliminating everything that makes that building unique and representative of the time and place in which it was created. 
Additionally, those South and West glazing walls are going to incur crazy amounts of solar gain with no sun-shading in the summer and bleed heat in the winter. Way to renovate a building and manage to substantially increase its energy consumption.

Anything is better than that block of shit Sears building. 

 That is not a bad idea. Ugly to some but it would definitely participate in taking Granville Street back to its roots. Especially if the sign had a vintage/retro look to itself.

First of all, kudos to Nordstrom for forcing building owner Cadillac Fairview to finally spend some of their piles of money and convert their ‘stuck in the early 1970s’ anachronism. While almost any design would be better than the building’s status quo, it shouldn’t surprise us that a go-it-safe CF selected another glass box copy that James Cheng has proved he is so adept at replicating with his slightly altered successes found city-wide.

I was surprised to discover that the present incarnation was designed by master Argentine American architect Cesar Pelli (no doubt experimenting during his early period) responsible for some of the world’s great towers. Would have loved to see a cutting edge Bing Thom or a global starchitect iconic design but this is Vancouver after all / unfortunately. I agree with johnvanrij and Archined comments and hope some innovations will be included in the design. I could imagine an integrated Hi definition LED film on the Hornby St. side windows that could be turned into an adjustable full wall screen. I’ve seen a variation in a couple other cities showing artist created videos that were amazing. I wonder what Cesar Pelli would come up with now?

 Thank you for explaining that. Let me put it this way then; lets hope that those involved in designing and building the conversion will take sustainability and energy conversation into consideration and create something that would reflect the environmental conscious city that (we think) we are.

After I wrote that I realized that LEED is hard to do on such an old building unless you are willing to put some serious cash into it. I doubt Cadillac Fairview would go that far.

My father helped put up the cranes thst built the sears building and helped build it as well…going to be sad to see it go

I agree with you in that I would love to see more environmentally responsible commercial buildings in the COV. Unfortunately most (I say most as there are some notable exceptions) developers and property owners are primarily interested in maximizing return and minimizing investment. I can tell you from personal experience that selling most clients on even a 10% additional initial investment in green building features is most times nearly impossible, even when long term savings is demonstrated. And when these inclusions are made, they are the first to be axed if the project (as most do) goes over budget. But such is the nature of the developer. Being upset at them for this is like getting angry at the wind for blowing. The only way that this will change is by the market, the authority (COV) or both forcing them to do more. People were really upset when the COV first instituted their policy of requiring LEED or Built Green ratings on all rezoning, now it’s just the cost of doing business. We can only hope that the COV will be brave enough weather the storm expand this policy. 

The new HVAC systems will likely be considerably more efficient than the original one (if it’s being upgraded) but I would think that the poor thermal resistance of the wall assembly would offset this.

I think that you are correct that Cadillac Fairview will likely not put that much money in when they are not required to.

I kinda like the design, especially when compared with the current Sears one.