Vancouver Magazine
The Best Thing I Ate All Week: Beaucoup Bakery’s Pistachio Raspberry Cake
Live Spot Prawns Are Only Here for a Month—and You Can Try Them at This Festival
Cupcake Thief Breaks Into Vancouver Bakery, Cleans Up Glass, Takes Selfies and Leaves
Succession Is Over: Now It’s Time To Watch the Greatest Show About Wine Ever Made
Our 2023 Sommelier of the Year Franco Michienzi of Elisa Steakhouse Shares His Top Wine Picks
We’ve Scored a Major Discount for VanMag Readers at the Best Wine Festival in Town
Meet OneSpace, the East Vancouver Co-working Space That Offers On-site Childcare
What You Missed at the VMO 2022/23 Season Finale Concert
Protected: Visit the Joint Replacement Center of Scottsdale
Wellness in Whistler-Your Ultimate Early Summer Retreat
Local Summer Getaway: 3 Beautiful Okanagan Farm Tours
Local Summer Getaway: Golfing at Alberta’s Crowsnest Pass
The Latest in Cutting-Edge Kitchen Appliances
7 Spring-y Shopping Picks, From a Lightweight Jacket to a Fresh Face Cleanser
Is There a Distinctly “Vancouver” Watch?
IF YOU HAVEN’T toured the UBC campus lately, you may want to take a map; its 1,000 acres have undergone massive changes in recent years. Indeed, the rapid emergence of “U-Town”—a collection of eight distinct villages that will more than double the campus population—has raised the hackles of conservationists who don’t want trees felled for condos. But how else, mid recession, does an administration pay for the 17 new academic buildings also springing up? Trek south down Wesbrook Mall, past Keats Hall, Chaucer Hall, and Panhellenic House until you hit the phalanx of billboards advertising shingle-and-brick complexes. Like most suburban developments, Wesbrook (the largest U-Town hood) feels sweetly manicured but a little lonely. Eventually, more than 5,000 residents (in 2,500 units) will live in this village. By 2030, when all eight villages are completed, more than 25,000 people will call the campus home.
YOU ARE HERE
Siblings Bayan, 21, and Roya, 18, grew up in Qatar, Thailand, Venezuela, and Canada. The nomads have alighted at UBC to continue their post-secondary education—Bayan, his third year of biomedical engineering; Roya, her second year of an arts degree. Uninterested in cramped (mono-sex) student residences, they opted for a condo in the campus’s new village.
The Bennetts looked at 10 other places around town, including a spot kitty-corner to the fraternity houses, before settling on an 856-square-foot condo in the Pacific Spirit development.
They liked the water feature out front and generous patio in the back. With financial assistance from their father, a petroleum engineer, the siblings moved in at the end of July. With classes in full swing, Bayan and Roya haven’t had time to decorate the two-bedroom, two-bath unit. “It’s still kind of a mess.”
Classes are a 15-minute walk away, and espresso-fuelled study sessions at Blenz are mere steps. Roya is also keyed up for voice lessons at the village’s Mozart School of Music and part-time work at Save-On-Foods across the street. Happily, wilderness still beckons in the form of forests to the east and the UBC Farm a brief stroll to the south.
Not the neighborhood for you? Get an in-depth look at some of these areas:
Bowen Island
Richmond
White Rock
Mount Pleasant
UniverCity