Yaletown Real Estate – Homes and Condos For Sale

High rise condos, decadent apartments and trendy shops make up Yaletown, one of the most densely populated enclaves in Vancouver. Before Expo 86, the area was largely rail yards and warehouses. After that the industrial zone gave way to parks, marinas, and some of the priciest real estate in the city. Century old buildings were converted into artsy complexes, and that urban regeneration project is ongoing.

City planners made sure that in the development of this new Yaletown, there would be adequate public space. A Central Area Plan, put into service in 1991, allowed the zoning to permit office space in Yaletown. This allowed the city to still preserve its many heritage structures while at the same time providing a more livable community. The area’s southern boundary is actually an extension of the Stanley Park Seawall’s linear park.

Examples of this preservation are found along Mainland and Hamilton Streets, site of old brick buildings dating back over 100 years. Once used as warehouses, they have been given a second life as either quaint offices or loft apartments. The bottom floors are filled with pubs, boutique stores and restaurants, giving an old-time neighborhood feel to the area.

Yaletown’s community centre is fashioned out of an old Canadian Pacific roundhouse that used to house railroad engines. The turntable that once turned these engines around is now an outdoor amphitheatre, another example of the old merging pleasantly with the new.