Part of the issue as I see it today, is a direct result of underbuilding the downtown core for much of the past 30 years. Each project over 4 floors was scrutinized to death, resulting in less density than there should have been. Every OCP that stipulated 10 floors constituted a Vancouveresque skyscraper and every time "someone" bemoaned their loss of the view of the Sooke hills as they drove around in their car, is why we are getting much taller towers proposed - and approved - now.

I think this building will be a part of gentrifying the "blight" away.

I don't know if that's the goal. I feel like it might be more about permanently entrenching the current situation by adding a veneer of normalcy/legitimacy to it all. So that it looks less like a neglected no man's land, but otherwise continues basically as is. Methinks the other towers on Pandora would be elements of this same effort.

Here's the thing: if the authorities are going to continue to pursue orchestrated chaos re: addiction, homelessness, etc. in designated districts then this actually might not be a bad direction for the Pandora scene. It could end up functioning as a kind of compromise whereby the self-destruction and all of the other bad stuff is still there, but the bad stuff no longer dominates everything else like it has for the past several years. A prettier, kinder, cleaner, safer, and more inclusive kind of no man's land, if you will.

Even the bike lane is part of that compromise, methinks.

Suddenly the south water views from the Abbey project just got a lot worse.

I'm not sure the views around the existing Sandpiper building will be all that impressive anyway.

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