Finally the corner of 12th and Cambie Street at the edge of Mount Pleasant is getting some love!

A new real estate development is slated for this high-profile area in the near future.

This new Mount Pleasant real estate will be located across the street from City Hall.

From Changing City Updates:

It’s designed by Fougere Architecture for Shato Holdings (who own White Spot – there’s an existing restaurant on the southern half of the site). Most of the company’s work so far (from their website evidence) is more modestly scaled residential buildings, but this goes to eight storeys with 137 condos over retail and a restaurant (want to guess which one?)

Stay tuned for more information as it unfolds! In the meantime, if you’d like to know more about buying or selling real estate in Mount Pleasant, please contact Vancouver Realtor Justin Leigh.

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If you own real estate around Mount Pleasant’s Guelph Park, soon you may have the opportunity to partake in a community garden.

We found this interesting post about the proposed community garden on Vancouver Open File:

On Monday (April 30th), the Vancouver park board is expected to approve a proposal for a new community garden to be built in East Vancouver’s Guelph Park, across the street from Mount Pleasant Elementary.

The project comes from the Urban Diggers Society, a Mount Pleasant-area group whose mandate is to provide local residents with opportunities to grow organic produce, flowers, and herbs. Their plan is to build a garden 116 feet by 86 feet in an unused portion of the park.

According to this staff report, the Urban Diggers Society would pay all the costs associated with building the garden and are only asking the park board to pick up the water service tab.

Seventy-five residents weighed in on the proposal and all gave the project their full approval so you can expect park commissioners to do the same next week.

The Vancouver Park Board has over 70 community gardens in our fair city – here’s a list of where you can find them.

If you’d like to find out more about buying or selling real estate in Mount Pleasant, please contact Vancouver Realtor Justin Leigh.

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The City of Vancouver’s ‘Greenest City by 2020′ campaign is now offering residents the opportunity to receive a grant to help improve their neighbourhoods ‘Green’ initiative.

If you own real estate in Mount Pleasant and have an idea for Green Living, here’s some information about the grants:

Greenest City Neighbourhood Small Grants

The City of Vancouver and Vancouver Foundation have teamed up to help make Vancouver the greenest city by 2020. We’ve created the Greenest City Fund – a four-year, $2 million fund that will support community-led green projects.

We want to go right into the heart of the community for ideas, and that’s why we’ve dedicated a portion of the Fund to support Neighbourhood Small Grants (NSG) that have a green focus. Our aim is to encourage local initiatives, designed and undertaken by residents, right in their community.

We’re looking for fabulous ideas from you, Vancouver residents, which will make your neighbourhood greener. Your proposal needs to meet the criteria on the left and must benefit your Vancouver neighbourhood.

Find out more about the grant application process here.

Find out more about buying and selling real estate in Mount Pleasant by contact Vancouver Realtor Justin Leigh.

Whether you are moving into or out of your Mount Pleasant real estate, you may be in need of some extra storage space.

Maple Leaf Storage is located at 1818 Quebec Street on the corner of 2nd Ave., where Mount Pleasant meets False Creek.

The Maple Leaf Storage facility is clean, easy to get in and out of, and the staff are helpful and friendly. It also has a great security system that gives each person their own code to get into the building.

Maple Leaf offers you convenient and hassle-free self storage solutions for your personal self storage needs. We are an extension of your garage, your attic, your home.

Whether you’re moving, downsizing, renovating or just looking for extra space, Maple Leaf Storage can help.

If you’re currently thinking about buying or selling real estate in Mount Pleasant, contact Vancouver Realtor Justin Leigh for help with this important decision today.

If you’re currently shopping for Mount Pleasant real estate with your husband or wife, you may have the common goal of owning a home here – but your wish list is probably quite different!

Here’s an interesting breakdown from The Chronicle Herald about the difference between what men and women want in a home:

A bathroom with a view
Women are not alone when it comes to wanting a spa-like experience and a wonderful view. According to recent surveys, increasingly men are more interested in the comforts of a luxury bathroom complete with a high-end Jacuzzi tub and a great view.

Look whose cookin’ now!
There has also been a significant shift in culinary activity in the home. More men profess an interest in cooking and look for a kitchen complete with high-end appliances and lots of counter space.

The home office
With an increasing trend that encourages working from home, both men and women are seeing the value in opting to convert that small bedroom into a home office.

Going green
More men than women express an interest in ‘green’ homes. Women favour the garden as their refuge, and consider it one of the more significant influences when considering a new home.

Closet junkies
In the past, where women wanted a great kitchen and men a large work space for their tools, today’s couples place a spacious master bedroom with ample closet space as high on their list of desirable features in a house.

Men and the ‘man cave’
Both sexes agree that having their own ‘space’ is crucial. Men in particular tend to still call the garage ‘home,’ and rank the ‘man cave’ as prime territory in a house.

Relationships that work
Whether searching for that great new kitchen or seeking the refuge of a soothing tub, for the new home buyer, there are also the intangibles that can affect the whole buying process. This is why a good relationship with your REALTOR® is so important.

Women, as a rule, want that connection with a REALTOR® they can trust, while for most men, it comes down to the bottom line — ‘just the facts please.’ At the end of the day, both women and men want to know they are getting the best possible value for their important investment; and, that is where the expertise and knowledge of a REALTOR® is invaluable when helping couples find that perfect home.

In the end, your REALTOR® will help you find the best case scenario that satisfies both of you.

If you’d like to learn more about buying or selling real estate in Mount Pleasant, please contact Vancouver Realtor Justin Leigh.

The Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival begins this Thursday April 5th through the 28th.

Mount Pleasant real estate has its fair share of this gorgeous tree, making Spring a delight for the senses!

Here’s some background on The Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival with more information available on their website:

The first Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival was held in 2005, its founding year as a non-profit society led by a dedicated board of directors who shared my vision, and supported by its launch partner, the Vancouver Board of Trade as a Spirit of Vancouver initiative. In 2007, formal recognition of the Festival’s objectives qualified it for charitable status. These objectives included public education through seasonal, cherry themed, city wide viewing programs, musical performances, and fine art and craft exhibitions. In 2008, the Festival was kindly offered a home at VanDusen Botanical Garden. A new cherry grove was planted in the Garden dedicated to the Festival’s Blossom Benefactor, The Honourable Dr. David C. Lam.

The underlying purpose of the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival is a simple one embracing all citizens of all ages: we are blessed to have these trees and the more closely we look at them and the more we learn about them, the more enjoyment they give us. And, likewise, the more we are motivated to care for and nurture them. Vancouverites, who already enjoy an active outdoor lifestyle, now, through the efforts of the Festival have even more choices. They can ‘bike the blossoms’ or enjoy guided walking tours of ‘Festival favourites’ or participate even more actively as Cherry Scouts: locating, identifying, photographing, recording and sharing their favourites. The result of these activities is an online, up-to-date Cherry Blossom Viewing Map covering the 23 neighbourhoods of Vancouver. Another is this second edition of the field guide, Ornamental Cherries in Vancouver. The purpose of Ornamental Cherries in Vancouver, 2009 edition is to help everyone notice the beauty around them and to look more closely. This field guide is designed to be a handy-sized invaluable aid for identifying and learning about the thirty-five different cultivars of ornamental cherries in Vancouver.

We truly are blessed to have an abundance of these trees in Vancouver!

Do you own real estate in Vancouver’s Mount Pleasant neighbourhood?

Are you and your family considering either selling or renovating your Mount Pleasant home?

‘Love It or List It’ is an HGTV real estate reality show looking for candidates to showcase their Mount Pleasant homes on the new season.

Participant Criteria:

* Must have a minimum design budget of $20,000.

* Must have at least 2 rooms or areas in the home that are dysfunctional and/or lack flow and require renovation.

* Participants must move out of the home for the one month during the expedited renovations.

* Participants must have a stake in the home – meaning you do not have to be a couple, you can be a single parent with grown children who live at home with a stake in what happens to the home.

* Participants must be fun, lively, outspoken and outgoing.

* Be available for 6 staggered shooting days in one month.

* One willing to be on the side to LOVE IT and one on the side to LIST it.

* Houses only. No condos because of condo boards approval…or lack thereof.

* Within a one hour radius of downtown Vancouver.

If you’d like to know more about getting your Mount Pleasant real estate featured on ‘Love It or List It’, please contact Vancouver Realtor Justin Leigh @ 604-780-3457.

The debate over the Rize real estate proposal at the corner of Broadway and Kingsway in Mount Pleasant continues with another public hearing on March 27th at Vancouver City Hall.

If you’d like to be part of this discussion it will begin at 7pm. If you’d like to register to speak on either side of the issue, here are the details from the City of Vancouver website:

PUBLIC HEARING RECONVENED:

Date: Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Time: 7 pm (beginning with Speaker #104)
Place: Council Chamber, Third Floor, City Hall, 453 West 12th Avenue
You may communicate your thoughts on an issue to the Mayor and Councillors by emailing mayorandcouncil@vancouver.ca and they will receive all correspondence before the matter is considered.

To register to speak, please call the Public Hearing Information Line at 604.829.4238, or e-mail publichearing@vancouver.ca. For general information on Public Hearings, please visit the Public Hearings website.

For more information on the meeting, please contact Pat Boomhower, Meeting Coordinator, at 604.873.7015 or email pat.boomhower@vancouver.ca.

The Community Amenity Contribution (CAC) for this project has been revised from an on-site amenity of artist studio production space to a cash contribution. While the form of development has not changed from the previous submission (October 2011), the floor area from the artist studio production space is now counted in the floor area calculations as commercial retail space, resulting in an increase in the floor space ratio (FSR) from 5.38 to 5.55.

In addition, the 15 for-profit rental housing units have been removed and these units are now covered under market residential housing. This change has no impact to the FSR calculations.

The revised application includes the following:

Two-storey commercial podium.
241 dwelling units.
Building heights of 5, 5, 9 and 19 storeys.
Floor space ratio (FSR) of 5.55
Underground parking for 320 vehicles
Increased sidewalk widths on portions of the Kingsway and 10th Avenue frontages
A cash contribution towards off-site cultural or civic facilities, or other approved public benefit, in lieu of the originally proposed on-site artist studio production space.

What do you think Mount Pleasant? Come out and let the City of Vancouver know where you stand on Rize’s real estate proposal.

Are you looking for a small piece of Mount Pleasant real estate to call home?

Working with smaller spaces can be challenging sometimes, but getting to cozy and comfortable is easy with inspiration.

Here’s a Houzz tour of some Mount Pleasant real estate that is only 640 square feet, revamped by a local graphic designer to suit his personal style:

“I love to cook so I knew I wanted to design my own kitchen and make the space mine — something that would allow me to entertain while making a meal,” Tyler Wilman says. As soon he bought his Vancouver apartment he envisioned the changes he wanted to make. A graphic designer, Wilman is drawn to pieces that tell a story, and personalized the space with pieces from his childhood home, Vancouver estate sales and Craigslist finds.

Photographs by local photographer Megan Buchanan.

If you’d like to know more about real estate opportunities in Mount Pleasant, please contact Vancouver Realtor Justin Leigh.

16East Townhomes is a Mount Pleasant real estate project currently in construction at the corner of 16th Ave and Prince Edward Street.

Only two blocks from Main Street, 16East Townhomes in Mount Pleasant puts you within walking distance to all the neighbourhood gems!

Restaurants, boutiques, cafes, grocery stores, the Mount Pleasant Community Centre, parks and major transit routes.

16East Townhomes in Mount Pleasant Feature:

- Open plan great rooms, designed for easy entertaining
- Generous square footages with excellent one & two level floorplans
- Lower units feature private parkade entries w/mudroom & storage, and spacious patios/outdoor spaces
- Upper units enjoy private rooftop paitos with natural gas and water connections included
- Private off-street courtyard space
- Electric vehicle charging stations
- Maple Kitchen Cabinets available in an exclusive designer finish
- Stunning Granite with undermount sinks in kitchen & bathrooms
- Italian Porcelain tile in kitchen & baths with bamboo glass accents
- Berber carpeting in bedroom areas
- Large storage/flex spaces in many units
- Engineered maple hardwood flooring
- Premium stainless steel gas range
- Energy-star stainless steel dishwasher
- Efficient front-load washer/dryer
- Dual flush toilets & Italian fixtures
- Luxurious bathtub in ensuite
- Prewired for High-speed internet

If you’d like to know more about purchasing at home at 16East or any other Mount Pleasant real estate, please contact Vancouver Realtor Justin Leigh.