Second + Main 180 East 2nd Avenue 233 homes in a 12-storey building by Create Properties
Second + Main reflects the comforts of home
Mary Frances Hill
The Province
There’s the rigor of work, there’s the comfort of home and there’s the good fortune of Lucas van den Berg, who recognized the warmth and familiar features of his own home while at work as development manager at Second + Main, a residential community planned for Mount Pleasant.
Van den Berg and his family enjoy many of the features in the interiors, chosen by False Creek Design, in his own home, he says.
“The esthetic and design elements False Creek Design brought to the project are both very refined and very comfortable — the same features my family loves about our own home,” says van den Berg, a developer with Create Properties, which works with Northchild Developments on the project. “I have a lot of the same elements in my own home, from the Liebherr fridges and wall-hung European styled toilets, to the hot-rolled steel feature elements found in the common areas.”
The plan for the site includes commercial space, affordable housing and artists’ space, which reflects the needs of the population of Mount Pleasant, and which steered the developers’ and designers’ creativity in space planning, says van den Berg. They knew buyers would be keen to use mobile and space-saving features, such as a kitchen island with a pull-out table and mobile storage space, to suit their needs.
Van den Berg points to the customizable closet units with adjustable shelves and hanging space that can be moved where the homeowner needs. These mobile closets effectively change the layout of the rooms, “something that is impossible to do with fixed closets,” he says. “You can use the wardrobe units for a variety of storage without having to spend a lot of money.”
Though the design ideas are out of the ordinary, the overall finishes in the Second + Main units are simple. Embracing this no-frills simplicity was key to False Creek Design’s vision — specifically in the white kitchen food prep area that hugs the wall in an L-shape, fronted by an island with a built-in extendable dining table. “Together [with False Creek Design] we felt a European minimalist esthetic would help to achieve the space efficiency we were after,” van den Berg says.
Second + Main will offer the option of either of linear galley or L-shaped kitchen, and include European kitchen cabinetry in two colour schemes. The kitchen island was custom-designed and made locally by False Creek Design, and it’s as popular among sales centre visitors as the mobile pieces, he says.
Van den Berg says these options give the homeowners the liberty to live the way they want, unconstrained and free of fixed structures that limit their movement and decor and design choices.
“At the end of the day, we did not want to push any big personality on the homeowner, rather, provide them with a highly functional and sophisticated canvas they can make their own.”
Second + Main
Where: 180 East 2nd Ave., Vancouver
What: 233 homes
Residence sizes and prices: Studios, one-bedrooms, Micro 2 suites, two-bedrooms, two-bedroom-plus-den and three-bedroom suites, 479 to 999 square feet, from $579,000s to $1.5 million
Developer and builder: Create Properties
Sales centre: 180 East 2nd Ave.
Telephone: 604-877-3222
Hours: Sat — Thurs from noon — 5 p.m. Doors open at noon on Saturday for the grand opening of the “reserve collection” of suites
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