Much is written and remembered about what happened in the remote past; what could have happened but didn’t is quickly forgotten. Laguna Del Mar is one of those things. It was an ambitious reclamation project on the West Vancouver waterfront. By the standards of the Sixties, it was actually a giant leap of imagination.
“Hemmed in by mountains and sea, one developer dreamed of creating a new waterfront oasis. In 1969, West Vancouver Council was approached with a project to create an artificial peninsula at Navvy Jack Point,” writes archivist Reto Tschan in the September 2017 issue of the journal of West Vancouver Historical Society.
“Featuring 700 units, an artificial lagoon with 160 marina moorings, and built on over 420,00 cubic metres of fill dredged from the sea, Laguna-Del-Mar was one of several land reclamation projects floated at that time.
Strong objections, centred on environmental and feasibility concerns, plus an estimated cost in excess of $12 million, meant that the project was never pursued.”
The Vancouver Sun ran a story on Laguna Del Mar at the time. This is how the Sun described it: “The design featured six banks of townhouses that curved out into Burrard Inlet, anchored by a highrise. The 26-storey tower was circular, and the five-storey townhouses were terraced like a pyramid. Inside the curve was a marina. And it was all to be built on fill, at the foot of 22nd Street.”
In fact, Laguna Del Mar was the smaller project that was envisioned after a much bigger project — Trade Winds — faced opposition from Ambleside residents.
“Tradewinds was so big it was to be spread out over 10 years. When it was finished, it was supposed to house 10,000 people between 19th and 23rd streets,” the Province wrote. Jack Pool was the developer and Barry Mcleod the architect for both the projects.
“These dreams were not, of course, realized. Today they live on in the Archives’ holdings, where they allow us to reflect on the West Vancouver we see today and the one which might have been,” writes Tschan.
