Kensington Mixed Use | 20m | 6s | Westrich Pacific | J+S Architect

Here's an update to something I posted a couple of years back.

Since July of 2011, there has been a steady stream of development in Kensington, nothing too large and not too much at once with at least one multifamily build (20 units or larger) always u/c in Kensington.

St John's 95 units
Pixel 98 units
Ven 115 units
Lido 80 units
Palfreyville apts. 20 units
The Kensington 77 units
Ezra 100 units
Aspen & Bow 93 Units
Victoria on 5th 90 units
Annex 104 units
Archer 39 units
The Theodore 114 units
Homespace 14th 27 units
The Hive 140 units
Kensington Mixed Use 150 units
Kit at Kensington 158 units

16 developments in 14 years totaling 1500 units, and in a relatively small area, mostly around the 10th street.
It's been a slow-burn on Kensington but the needle is always pointed in the right direction.

It's been an interesting journey for the area. From the early and mid-2000s perspective, Kensington was talked about in the lens of being top 1 or 2 urban communities - hip area, cool places, a bit of nightlife, urban lifestyle families and young people always talked about it. But at the time it was more of a "destination" than a self-sustaining place than people admitted - it really relied on commuter traffic and visitors from the burbs having a night out to keep the lights on to a nice walkable retail district.

The issue was always structural - despite it's urban vibes and attention to curating the retail experience, the area really never had a ton of population. The neighbourhoods around are geographically small, anti-growth and weren't able to capitalize as much as others on the incremental infill boom that created a doubling or tripling of local population at a scale that matters for self-sustaining walkable retail (see obviously the Beltline, but more recently also Marda Loop, Bridgeland, others as examples of a more growth-oriented areas that caught up to Kensington in activity over this period).

While Kensington incrementally improved it's local population density it's slowly reducing it's reliance on those commuters retail visitors, it's evolved into a more sustainable urban community. But others have been even busier - Beltline added like 10,000+ units over the same time. Marda Loop communities added several thousand units, so did Bridgeland and any other "competitor" communities. Many inner city neighbourhoods added more units than Kensington area did over that time period. Many more places remain far better priced to access for urban lifestyle families too as a result of more growth in the past few decades.

Meanwhile, other areas also began to excel at the "curation" and design approaches only Kensington was top-tier at previously - Marda Loop's weird little 34th Avenue micro-wine bar cluster, University District's whole thing, the Beltline's upgrades all over such as the high-density urban big city vibes on 1st Street SW and surrounding Tompkins Park on 17th Ave SW, for examples. More areas offer cool, interesting urban amenities that were previously only in Kensington and a handful of other clusters.

Take this all together - in my opinion, the story of Kensington the past decades is one of continued success in retail curation and urban design, as they have continued to improve the urban vibes with incremental growth, but equally important is a story where it's the "rise of the rest" as other areas were far more successful in using growth to transform their areas (for better or worse). Despite always having a construction crane, Kensington is a very slow-growth community.

The result is Kensington doesn't stand out anymore - other areas have caught up and even surpassed it in several dimensions of offering urban amenities. Kensington isn't talked about the same way: it's not a top 3, it's a top 10 urban neighbourhood. This isn't a bad thing - it's a reality of a bigger city with more neighbourhoods offering things people want in urban spaces and having better capacity to provide them. The urban tide raised a lot of boats, Kensington isn't the only one out there anymore!

It's a bit like a modest version of the "Kitsilano effect" from Vancouver - 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s the Kitsilano neighbourhood was all the rage. But slower relative growth and higher relative prices slowly transformed what the area's vibe actually into something where it's not talked about as much as the up-and-coming areas with far greater capacity to accept growth.
 
'Slow burn', is a good way to describe Kensington's growth, and in a good way. It was already the cool inner city neighborhood, and the slow growth has allowed to it improve itself while other hoods move up to the same level. 20 years ago Bridgeland, Marda Loop, and Inglewood all had the signs of becoming cool destination neighborhoods, but they were quite a ways behind Kensington, and also Mission, which was kind of a poor man's Kensington at the time. Agreed, the biggest explosion by far is the Beltline, because it's a large neighborhood, it's evolution doesn't get recognized enough. All that extra population and a major renaissance as a self sustained neighborhood, with its own big box stores like the Canadian Tire and Best Buy and three grocery stores, with a 4th on the way.
 
Of all the inner city ‘destination’ neighborhoods, Marda Loop, Bridgeland, Inglewood, Mission, Beltline and Kensington, I I would still take Kensington all costs equal, but I have to admit those other neighborhoods are really evolving. They’ve come along way and easily rival Kensington these days.
 
Part of the reason Kensington was more of a slow burn was probably because it was an established neighborhood. Compared to Bridgeland, there wasn’t as many empty lots and was priced much higher. The only plot that can do a large community is probably the Riley Health site, and a future Safeway redevelopment.

The neighborhood is also more “boxed in”, with SAIT, 14th, Memorial, LRT. There’s been many attempts at high rises on 14 but never get off the ground due to the commuter traffic.
 
I think I would choose Bridgeland first, then Kensington, then Inglewood. I have a soft spot for the massive park in Bridgeland and having some pizza at Una followed by an ice cream at Village.
Really enjoy visiting Bridgleland. Mari is also great! Although from people I know that live there, the issues in the area are getting worse.
 
I can see that changing after the 3 recent projects off 14th on the other side of the river - 1400 West 10th, Hat, Sunalta Heights.
I hope so but I think the proposals on the North side happened around the same time, but most were abandoned during application. The challenge with the North side is the SFH one block over. Unlikely to get something the height of the Hat and Sunalta Heights, probably end up with a West Tenth 1400 type of building
 
The vacant lot east of the tracks (Sunnyside Triangle site) is owned by the city. The city has been "working" on engagement / planning / RFPs / studies since 2015.
Attainable Homes has the site for development now, may even see some movement on things this year finally. I think we are getting about 6 storeys for the site.
 
IMG_2832.jpeg
 
Attainable Homes has the site for development now, may even see some movement on things this year finally. I think we are getting about 6 storeys for the site.
Almost certainly 6 storeys, as i imagine going any higher would push costs up too much by having to go concrete and any lower would not yield enough units to make it worthwhile.
 
I was hoping for a marginally larger development with ground floor retail, but oh well.
 

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