ABERDEEN CENTRE MALL EXPANSION: NEW HOTEL ADJOINED TO CANADA LINE ABERDEEN STATION

Fairchild Developments Ltd. has applied to the City of Richmond for the rezoning and construction of 4000 No.3 Road for:

- 8-storey addition
- approximate 150-room hotel
- integration of the new development with the Canada Line's Aberdeen Station (concourse level entry and platform level entry)

http://web.bcnewsgroup.com/portals/uploads/richmond/.DIR288/3_Road___Aberdeen_Project3_070510.jpg


http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/6498/39ev3.jpg

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i have a feeling... its guna be like
canyons and canyons of buildings >.>

Looks sharp. Just love how the owner of the property didn't like the previous mall he had built there a decade or so ago so he just tore down the whole thing and created a more modern design. He saw the hotel across the street and decided to one up it by building one of his own. Glad to see that he didn't spare expenses by going with the standard box. Great design! The region needs more people like him

Looks promising!

Aberdeen Centre isn't doing that well currently in terms of customer traffic. Hopefully the new Canada Line will remedy that problem and make all this development viable.

From the Bing Thom website - Aberdeen Station Lands.

Located at the intersection of No 3 and Cambie Roads in Richmond, the Aberdeen Station Lands is the third phase of the Aberdeen Centre project. This new construction is an extension of the original Aberdeen Centre and will also connect to the Aberdeen Residences, which are currently under construction.

Following the original Aberdeen Centre concept of creating a retail/entertainment centre to engage street activity, the program for the new development consists of three retail and five hotel levels. This project also introduces a new public art component entitled "Nexus". A transparent glazed wall, Nexus is both the receptor and transmitter of information weaving through the inside and outside spaces. Ephemeral in nature, Nexus mediates between the box-like interior and the fluid urban exterior, bringing life and activity into the city streets.

The design for the Aberdeen Station Lands emphasizes the connections to the Canada Line transit station plaza and the existing Aberdeen Centre. An organically shaped multi-level atrium opens up to the plaza and diagonally connects the plaza with the Aberdeen Centre parkade. The station plaza responds to the organic shape of the west facade and is animated by the atrium which extends vertically to connect with the Hotel Lobby.

At the NW corner, the building cantilevers partially cover the Canada Line guideway to acknowledge the curve of the guideway and the connection with the Station.This tiered series of cantilevers provide a landmark entry to the No 3 Road commercial district and is also a gesture towards the nearby Fraser River.

http://www.bingthomarchitects.com/admin/uploadedImages/1179434693.9524.jpg

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http://www.bingthomarchitects.com/admin/uploadedImages/1179433563.7772.jpg

^ freakin sweet!

So are the colors / images gonna be bright public art?? I hope so - how cool that would be on skytrain in the evening - like timesquare feel...

yeah those colours look great

hopefully this development and the canada line will help bring more people to aberdeen and create that bustling mall atmosphere thats missing.. i remember the last time i went there it felt so deserted

Slightly different rendering - something more realistic/I like more. But where's the hotel?
http://www.aberdeencentre.com/en/canadaline/02_l.jpg

I read that due to the current economic climate they dropped the plans for the hotel and were proceeding with just a mall expansion.
Also, the existing Aberdeen mall isn't as quiet as it used to be. The food court even has a Triple O's!

How busy is Aberdeen Centre? What is the busiest Asian mall in Vancouver nowadays?

^^ I would say all the major Chinese malls in Richmond are busy because they are all pretty close to each other geographically.

Aberdeen and Parker Place are probably the main ones and both have been rebuilt and expanded recently. Can't really say that they are "busy" however. Hopefully, Aberdeen Station will increase customer traffic once it opens.

Aberdeen is starting to get busy now. It was pretty quiet when it first opened since there weren't many stores (I heard the lease cost was close to Richmond Centre...). Now that there are more stores (though half of them is owned by Fairchild, the owner of the mall), it seems to be busier now.

I read that due to the current economic climate they dropped the plans for the hotel and were proceeding with just a mall expansion.

Also, the existing Aberdeen mall isn't as quiet as it used to be. The food court even has a Triple O's!

Oh no... (I'm not surprised though)... where did you hear that? I hope they at least design it so they can build a future hotel overtop of the mall expansion.

That's unfortunate. I think they phased in the Aberdeen residences too, hopefully that will be the case here.

Edit: Dunno know where to put this, but the No3 and Westminster intersection is starting to fill out:

They don't hv an updated aerial photo on livemaps, so i photoshopped the construction from the FLO development into here:
http://img381.imageshack.us/img381/6351/richmondhx4.jpg
http://img123.imageshack.us/img123/8195/projectsja0.jpg
So far Opal looks terribly-dated, Merry Park has a nice shape but isn't cladded yet which makes it hard to judge; but both Paloma2 and Camino look very promising.

well as a driver and someone needing to park finding a spot at aberdeen is hard the lot is usually close to full - maybe cause so much of it was closed off for the condo owners but the parking lot is always busy and the mall itself is usually busy when i have gone

i can only imagine the train will make it even busier for the carless westenders who need their daiso

well as a driver and someone needing to park finding a spot at aberdeen is hard the lot is usually close to full - maybe cause so much of it was closed off for the condo owners but the parking lot is always busy and the mall itself is usually busy when i have gone

Aberdeen Centre's parking lot is horrible... Tight Spots + Tight Corners + Chinese Mall = Disaster

Aberdeen is starting to get busy now. It was pretty quiet when it first opened since there weren't many stores (I heard the lease cost was close to Richmond Centre...). Now that there are more stores (though half of them is owned by Fairchild, the owner of the mall), it seems to be busier now.

Oh no... (I'm not surprised though)... where did you hear that? I hope they at least design it so they can build a future hotel overtop of the mall expansion.

That's quite unfortunate....I had assumed it would be built since they started construction long ago.

From the most recent rendering, the roof looks a bit bulky so maybe it's sortof a platform for a future hotel??
http://www.aberdeencentre.com/en/canadaline/02_l.jpg




Aberdeen and Parker Place are probably the main ones and both have been rebuilt and expanded recently. Can't really say that they are "busy" however. Hopefully, Aberdeen Station will increase customer traffic once it opens.

Traffic will definitely increase substantially, but given the lower Richmond Canada Line frequency of 6-7 minutes it won't be as significant as say, the impact of the Line on Oakridge where the frequency is doubled.

The old Aberdeen Centre used to be crazily busy. Then, they demolished the 10-year old mall for the new and current one. During the construction period, all of Aberdeen's business seemed to have moved to Parker Place and Yaohan next door and to nearby strip malls. When the new mall was finished, they had a really flashy and fancy opening. But it failed to attract those people back considering only 10 shops including Daiso were open.

The future expansion and the Canada Line will be a miracle for Aberdeen Centre.




Tight Spots + Tight Corners + Chinese Mall = Disaster

LOL, i love that equation.

Aberdeen Centre's parking lot is horrible... Tight Spots + Tight Corners + Chinese Mall = Disaster

That's why I haven't been there for a long long time.

The corners @ aberdeen are as tight as the other asian malls, but the entrance is ridiculous. It would have been marginally better if they didn't waste the little space they had with that curb in between the lanes.

bills of SSP uploaded this article, which confirms methinks statement.

Westin to make 2010 debut
By Matthew Hoekstra - Richmond Review
Published: December 19, 2008 5:00 PM

Two local hotel projects have been shelved in the wake of the global economic crunch, but one luxury development is still slated to open in time for the 2010 Olympics.

Fairchild Developments Ltd. has scrapped plans for an eight-storey 150-room hotel at Aberdeen Centre, and Great Canadian Gaming Corporation has delayed its plans for a third hotel tower at River Rock Casino Resort.

Wall Centre Richmond, however, is moving full speed ahead with its project at the corner of Corvette and Sea Island ways in north Richmond, a mix of condominiums and hotel rooms.

Bruno Wall, president of Wall Financial Corporation, said the Westin Wall Centre, Vancouver Airport hotel will open in January 2010, while the residences—which sold out in 49 days—will be ready about six months later. The firm recently asked the city for a slight expansion of its hotel plans—by nine rooms—to build 231 apartments and 185 hotel rooms in three high-rise towers.

Wall said he’s confident the project will be a success.

“We’re long-term investors, and we’ve been active in both the hotel and rental apartment markets for the past 30 years, so we take a long view, and we think we’ve got a fantastic location, and we’re building a terrific product.”

Although 2009 is expected to be a weak year in hotel bookings, the Winter Olympics is set to change that beyond two weeks of medal competition.

“With the kind of advertising campaign the 2010 Olympics gives Greater Vancouver, Whistler and British Columbia, I think the prospects for hospitality are fantastic,” said Wall.

Plans for a hotel at Aberdeen Centre were dropped earlier this year due to the “supply of hotels” and high construction costs, said Danny Leung of Fairchild Developments.

It would have been built atop a 200,000-square-foot expansion of the Asian-themed No. 3 Road mall, an expansion that’s still going ahead and will be complete after 2010.

Meanwhile, River Rock’s hotel expansion has been put on hold. Plans call for a five-storey 191-room hotel tower above a new parking garage to be shared by Canada Line riders and casino patrons.

The $90-million parkade will be built with hotel footings to accommodate a building in the future, along with 21,000 square feet of commercial space.

Great Canadian had anticipated the hotel to open as soon as late 2009, but now its future is unclear.

Spokesman Howard Blank said the hotel has been delayed by a year due to the ailing global financial market.

“We’re taking proactive steps instead of reactive, we’re not putting all of our development plans on the go as we previously had. We’re just staggering them,” he said.

Great Canadian will instead concentrate on River Rock’s $51-million expansion now underway that includes upgraded VIP facilities, new food and beverage offerings and an atrium renovation. The work is scheduled to be complete by 2010.

Ross McLeod, Great Canadian’s chairman and chief executive officer, made the announcement in November despite the four-diamond River Rock leading the company in growth.

“Given the uncertain Canadian and global economic climates, it is critical that Great Canadian be as prudent as possible in its capital investments,” he said in a statement.

University of B.C. professor Tsur Somerville said the economic crisis is certainly having an impact on developers, particularly due to the banks’ reluctance to loan money.

“The biggest piece of it is the freezing up of credit markets. So their ability to get financing is really compromised right now.”

Developers of hotels are especially vulnerable, he said, since there are no pre-sales and hotels are a cyclical industry.

“Business travel and vacation travel are prime things to cut during downturns. It’s a market where the demand is much less certain.”

Real estate markets that drive development won’t improve until the economy is doing better, or until people believe it’s doing better, Somerville noted.

•••

Richmond’s next hotel

•The Westin Wall Centre, Vancouver Airport

•Opens Jan. 1, 2010 at 3099 Corvette Way

•185 rooms, 11-storeys

•7,000 square feet of meeting space; restaurant; lounge

•Will be linked to two 16-storey residential towers

Source: Richmond Review

bills of SSP uploaded this article, which confirms methinks statement.

Fairchild Developments Ltd. has scrapped plans for an eight-storey 150-room hotel at Aberdeen Centre, and Great Canadian Gaming Corporation has delayed its plans for a third hotel tower at River Rock Casino Resort.



Source: Richmond Review

:(

Aberdeen is starting to get busy now. It was pretty quiet when it first opened since there weren't many stores (I heard the lease cost was close to Richmond Centre...). Now that there are more stores (though half of them is owned by Fairchild, the owner of the mall), it seems to be busier now.



Oh no... (I'm not surprised though)... where did you hear that? I hope they at least design it so they can build a future hotel overtop of the mall expansion.

I read it in the Richmond Review
"Plans for a hotel at Aberdeen Centre were dropped earlier this year due to the “supply of hotels” and high construction costs, said Danny Leung of Fairchild Developments.
It would have been built atop a 200,000-square-foot expansion of the Asian-themed No. 3 Road mall, an expansion that’s still going ahead and will be complete after 2010."

Full article here: http://www.bclocalnews.com/richmond_southdelta/richmondreview/news/36471589.html

Also read in today's Review that the huge Capstan Way development is in trouble too.

Oops, deasine beat me to it :p

UPDATE:

Fairchild Developments has submitted a new proposal to the city. It includes a six story building (25.5m) with retail and office space. The facade is all glass on the #3 Rd side and the Cambie side with additional parking in behind accessed by the current parkade entrance to the mall and residence. The design has changed quite a bit from both the rendering with and without the hotel (which is nolonger included in the proposal). Not quite as extravagant. I will upload a pic as soon as i figure out how to do so.

>>>This is my first post! I have enjoyed this site for a couple of years now and have finally decided to join. Look forward to posting more and to future discussions!

Welcome to SSC! Looking forward to see your photos. :)


In order to post photos in this forum, first, you need to upload them from your hard drive to the photos sharing sites like the Photobucket and the ImageShack, then use 'cut and paste' to post the pics.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2677/4104436261_795a9f0bc6_o.jpg

Thanks! This is a rendering from atchitect Bing Thom with Canada Line in front.

Nice! Its going to be a huge mall!

Too big. Aberdeen Centre's rent rates are as high as Richmond Centre... I'm serious. The spaces at Aberdeen aren't close to full, and many of the stores are owned by Fairchild anyways. That being said, the expansion is a welcome addition as it fills up that empty spot of nothingness on No. 3 Rd, and provides a walkway from the station directly into the mall itself.

I still find it strange that it is financially feasible to expand the mall. The mall is always so dead!!

^^ Yes, I went there on friday night and it was pretty quiet!

It's faaaar busier than when it first started. I went 4-5 years ago and it was completely dead. It felt like I was one of 5 or 6 customers in the mall and 2/3 of the store spaces were empty, even the food court. Now it at least looks like it's almost close to capacity and there are crowds and even line-ups occasionally, especially at the food court.

Btw, NCIX is moving into its new location at Aberdeen. It looks really fancy, I'm definitely going to check it out.

Btw, NCIX is moving into its new location at Aberdeen. It looks really fancy, I'm definitely going to check it out.

I was there during the opening day, its quite an impressive store.

its not bad - its always busy when i go - if you haven't been in the last year you'd be surprised how much busier it is