Most individuals would have never guessed this day would happen so soon! A proposal (dubbed Royal Roads Place, a name in keeping with the nearby Royal Roads University) in the western suburb of Colwood is aiming to top the tallest building on Vancouver Island (the 76m Beacon in Nanaimo) by 30m and the tallest building in the Victoria metro (the 62m Orchard House) by over 40m.

The tower is proposed at 105m (345') and 29-storeys with >160 units. At this point, the Mayor of Colwood is enthusiastic about the project and believes Colwood should see more highrise developments to diversify the municipality's tax base. If approved, Royal Roads Place will be located in the immediate vicinity of a recently approved 17-storey tower and a recently proposed 18-storey tower.

http://members.shaw.ca/michal/photos/colwoodhighrise.gif

wow ugly

wow ugly

Colwood and the rest of the western communities aren't particularly attractive but it's pretty harsh to call them ugly. The new buildings should help brighten things up a bit.

that is great news . anything beeing built up is Good .

The shape of the tower is oval, btw. It is not a square tower by any means. In fact, you can make out a bit of the footprint in the lower-left portion of the rendering.

That's awesome! I love to see Victoria high rise development. It has such a nice downtown feel.

Now that I know it's oval I don't like it as much, but it's better than some towers.

*looks at Ft McMurray*

wow uglyColwood and the rest of the western communities aren't particularly attractive but it's pretty harsh to call them ugly. The new buildings should help brighten things up a bit.
No he's right; it's heinous. But at least nobody can park junked hot-rods on their balconies.

lol ^^

I'm not sure how it looks from the rendering, cause aparantly on the lower 4 or 5 floors there will be a granite (is that correct) facade, and oval may look okay, depends what the colours and other materials. I think it's too hard to tell from this particular rendering. The architect has had some relatively attractive designs in the past.

It appears to be 30-storeys, not 29!

^^Even better.

so will it stick over the hill?

The '30th' floor is probably mechanical. Or, they're using the British system, calling the first floor 'Ground' and starting 1, 2, 3... on the second level.

Yikes, I feel that wouldn't belong in an elegant city like Victoria. Short and old seems to work for Victoria.

This isn't in the city-proper, it's in Colwood. Colwood is Victoria's equivalent of Surrey.

Short and old, yup ;) You should visit this place more often (or spend a little more time here when you do visit) and evaluate Victoria's actual assortment of architecture.

Labelling this city with silly one-liners is becoming archaic. Locals see it as an unfortunate legacy of misleading Joe-tourist visitors pamphlets that have misrepresented one of Canada's oldest cities for decades.

Perhaps this will give us a more accurate impression of Victoria's much balleyhooed relationship (or lack thereof) with the highrise form:

HIGHRISES - 1960s - 1970s

http://www.therealvictoria.ca/images/old_highrises/1.jpg

http://www.therealvictoria.ca/images/old_highrises/2.jpg

http://www.therealvictoria.ca/images/old_highrises/3.jpg

http://www.therealvictoria.ca/images/old_highrises/4.jpg

http://www.therealvictoria.ca/images/old_highrises/5.jpg

http://www.therealvictoria.ca/images/old_highrises/6.jpg

http://www.therealvictoria.ca/images/old_highrises/7.jpg

http://www.therealvictoria.ca/images/old_highrises/8.jpg

http://www.therealvictoria.ca/images/old_highrises/9.jpg

http://www.therealvictoria.ca/images/old_highrises/10.jpg

http://www.therealvictoria.ca/images/old_highrises/11.jpg

http://www.therealvictoria.ca/images/old_highrises/12.jpg

http://www.therealvictoria.ca/images/old_highrises/13.jpg

http://www.therealvictoria.ca/images/old_highrises/14.jpg

http://www.therealvictoria.ca/images/old_highrises/15.jpg

http://www.therealvictoria.ca/images/old_highrises/16.jpg

http://www.therealvictoria.ca/images/old_highrises/17.jpg

http://www.therealvictoria.ca/images/old_highrises/18.jpg

http://www.therealvictoria.ca/images/old_highrises/19.jpg

http://www.therealvictoria.ca/images/old_highrises/20.jpg

http://www.therealvictoria.ca/images/old_highrises/21.jpg

http://www.therealvictoria.ca/images/old_highrises/22.jpg

http://www.therealvictoria.ca/images/old_highrises/23.jpg

HIGHRISES - 1970s to 2000

http://www.therealvictoria.ca/images/old_highrises/23.jpg

http://www.therealvictoria.ca/images/old_highrises/24.jpg

http://www.therealvictoria.ca/images/old_highrises/25.jpg

http://www.therealvictoria.ca/images/old_highrises/26.jpg

http://www.therealvictoria.ca/images/old_highrises/27.jpg

http://www.therealvictoria.ca/images/old_highrises/28.jpg

http://www.therealvictoria.ca/images/old_highrises/29.jpg

http://www.therealvictoria.ca/images/old_highrises/30.jpg

http://www.therealvictoria.ca/images/old_highrises/31.jpg

http://www.therealvictoria.ca/images/old_highrises/32.jpg

http://www.therealvictoria.ca/images/old_highrises/33.jpg

http://www.therealvictoria.ca/images/old_highrises/34.jpg

*NOT SHOWN*

Sitkum Lodge

Tara Apartments

Chelsea Apartments

Savoy

HIGHRISES - 2001 to PRESENT (AND PROPOSED)

http://www.trendwest.com/images/resorts/victoria/victoria_ov_2b.jpg
Trendwest Worldmark (Victoria harbour - 9 stories - completed)

http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/1470/marriot7wj.jpg
Marriott Hotel (downtown - 16 stories - completed)

http://www.shoalpoint.com/images/gallery_large_01.jpg
Shoal Point (Victoria harbour - 12 stories - completed)

http://www.westbankcorp.com/images/Parc-full7.jpg
Parc (Vic West facing downtown - 12 stories - completed)

http://www.premieresuites.com/images/properties/victoria/ext_corazon.jpg
Corazon (downtown - 12 stories - completed)

http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/4752/astoria1dv.jpg
Astoria (downtown - 20 stories - completed)

http://www.concertproperties.com/data/upload/images//property_full/Belvedere_ext1.jpg
Belvedere (downtown - 16 stories - under construction)

http://www.oswegovictoria.com/images/royalty_free/Rndrng.jpg
Oswego (James Bay near downtown - 10 stories - under construction)

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/tGuerrero/P4200528.jpg
The Wave (downtown - 12 stories - under construction)

http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/data/533/1186shutters_model_2.jpg
Shutters (Victoria harbour - 9 stories - under construction)

http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/3413/swallowslanding21oq.jpg
Swallows Landing (Victoria harbour - 9 stories - under construction)

http://img349.imageshack.us/img349/2450/songheeshilltop9wb.jpg
Songhees Hilltop - Phase 1 of 3 (Victoria harbour - 11 stories - under construction)

http://img466.imageshack.us/img466/505/ariamodel1na.jpg
Aria (downtown - 2 x 12 stories - under construction)

APPROVED PROPOSALS

http://img349.imageshack.us/img349/2229/langford7sw.jpg
Suburban Condo Tower (Langford, west of Victoria - 17 stories - approved proposal)

http://skyscraperpage.com/gallery/data/533/1186mozart_building.jpg
Mozart Building (downtown - 12 stories - approved proposal - but officially stalled, which breaks our collective heart)

http://synergy.docksidegreen.com/images/home-right.jpg
Synergy (first building on Dockside Green - 10 stories)

http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/4899/chard0vr.jpg
Blanshard Street & Johnson Street (downtown - 14 stories - approved proposal)

PROPOSED/IN THE WORKS

http://www.westbankcorp.com/images/TheWaterFall-full1.jpg
Waterfall (downtown - 18 & 14 stories - proposed)

http://img429.imageshack.us/img429/6828/viewvancouver2zm.jpg
View Street at Vancouver Street (downtown - 14 stories - proposed)

http://www.therealvictoria.ca/images/colwoodhighrise.jpg
Suburban Condo Tower #2 (Colwood, west of Victoria - 29 stories - proposed)
*If it goes through, this would be the tallest building in the Victoria CMA.

http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/6126/cookjohnson4cr.jpg
Cook Street at Johnson Street (downtown - 10 stories - proposed)

Yup, short and old!

No he's right; it's heinous. But at least nobody can park junked hot-rods on their balconies.
All you've see of the building is a frontal elevation which has been coloured in brown. Any building would look a bit dull when shown in this way.

Here's the drawing which is much more representative of what the building will look like. It was approved the other day, btw.

http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/1848/colwoodtower5nx.jpg

sooo much potential in that area. they could have the best looking cities in the world over there, i think its just a matter of time before lots of realy tall buildings go up on the island and victoria takes other canadian cities by suprise. i have forseen it. ;)

Labelling this city with silly one-liners is becoming archaic. Locals see it as an unfortunate legacy of misleading Joe-tourist visitors pamphlets that have misrepresented one of Canada's oldest cities for decades.

How do you figure that Vic is one of Canada's oldest cities? The island wasn't settled until 1847. In comparison Quebec City / Montreal were founded in the 1600's. Upper Canada (Ontario) was opened for settlement in the 1790's. I think it would be more appropriate to say one of western Canada's oldest cities....

Yup, western canada's. Slip of the "tongue" back there.

I like Victoria , there is a lot of potential like WhitefordJ said . With its climate it should be one of the most sot after cities in CANADA , I would think anyways ...

Isn't Victoria western Canada's oldest city? I thought I looked into this once before...

I guess it depends what you mean by "western" Canada. Victoria was incorporated a few years before Winnipeg, and western Canada is usually meant to refer to everything west of Ontario.

Anybody know if there's another city west of Ontario that was incorporated prior to 1862?

Sorry, I guess the only other possibility is New Westminster. But I can't find the date of incorporation. 1859? But back then it was called Queensborough. Or is 1859 the year the name was changed? I'm not sure.

Anyway, I think New West takes it on a technicality.