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EV635 – ULI Americas Awards for Excellence Finalist
Learn more about 2021 ULI Americas Awards for Excellence Finalist, EV635 (Mexico City).
Grosvenor Ambleside- 2021 Americas Awards for Excellence Winner
May 4, 2021
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The expert local project team, led by Grosvenor and architect James KM Cheng, demonstrated leadership by embracing the significant challenges and constraints faced during entitlement and responding with a collaborative design iteration process that included adjusting building heights, terracing and articulating the floorplates, introducing landscaped slab edges, and breaking up the massing mid-block with a pedestrian public realm.
Photo By Ema Peter
Architect James KM Cheng’s envisioned Grosvenor Ambleside as a West Coast Modern masterwork. In a multi-family context, this unique design intent required innovative approaches to engineering and construction. Each building is comprised of a set of unique terraced floorplates that create expansive private roof decks up to 4,000 sf in size.
Location: West Vancouver, BC, Canada
Developers: Grosvenor Americas
Designers: James KM Cheng Architects; Mitchell Freedland Interior Design; SWA Group; Durante Kreuk Landscape Architecture
General Contractor: Ledcor Group
Site Size: 1.96 Acres
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Our curated variety of local and boutique retail and office tenants serve hundreds of thousands of customers each year, have created dozens of new jobs, and keeps local dining and entertainment spending in the community.
Grosvenor Ambleside in West Vancouver is a once-in-a-generation transformational waterfront development that replaced an old municipal police station and jail, a block of failing single-story retail, and a brownfield gas station with a 265,000 sf mixed-use development designed for the local community, and to the highest global standards.
Photo By Ema Peter
A series of post-tensioned floor slabs enhanced and preserved views by enabling large, unobstructed living spaces with reduced walls and columns compared to typical multi-family construction. This, combined with a custom high performance curtain wall system with large patio doors with openings up to 22 feet wide, further enhanced views and enabled a seamless integration between outdoor and indoor spaces. Large overhangs provide ample solar shading and mitigate heat gain in the south facing units.
West Vancouver’s Official Community Plan identified the 1.96 acre site as one of three Special Development Sites eligible for higher height, density and architectural expression. Completing a development of this complexity and scale is a historic and unique accomplishment in West Vancouver, a high barrier to entry market with a challenging entitlement environment. No mixed-use development of this scale had been developed here before, and it is the only one of the three Special Development Sites developed today.
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In December 2020, the Grosvenor Ambleside Galleria hosted the Artisan Farmers’ Market Society’s physically distanced, open-air, covered Winter Farmers’ Market providing an opportunity for the community to support local during the pandemic. The market received wide support from the municipality, community members, the residential strata, and the development’s restaurant tenants. Also In December 2020, the beloved Dundarave Festival of Lights extended to Grosvenor Ambleside Galleria. Dozens of live Christmas trees were installed in the galleria. Local businesses, schools and community groups sponsored and decorated the trees generating $70k in proceeds benefitting Lookout Housing Society.
Grosvenor’s vision was to help realize Ambleside’s potential as a world-class waterfront destination. To that end, Grosvenor assembled an internationally recognized and awarded team helmed by architect James KM Cheng, and artists Gordon Smith and Douglas Coupland – all of whom are locals.
A comprehensive three-year community engagement process resulted in a community vision for the site as a welcoming and vibrant place for people to live, eat, gather, enjoy art and culture, and attend festivals and events.
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Grosvenor Ambleside proudly supports the West Vancouver community by sponsoring the Harmony Arts Festival, a renowned annual arts and culture festival at Ambleside Park that attracts thousands of people from all over the region.
Today Grosvenor Ambleside celebrates its extraordinary location by West Vancouver’s waterfront. Two terraced buildings with 98 individually-designed homes sit above 35,000 sf of carefully curated retail that serves hundreds of thousands of people annually, and a significant art-filled public realm welcomes West Vancouver back to the waterfront.