CREDIT: Stuart Davis, Vancouver Sun A whole lot of storage in the kitchen is part of the SOMA attraction for buyers Shelley Mantei and Chris Huggins.

SOMA

Address: 2635 Prince Edward, Vancouver

Developer: Bogner Development

Architect: Rositch Hemphill and Associates

Interior design: False Creek Design Group

Size of project: Seven townhomes, 68 lofts (of which one-third are still available)

Price and size: A one-bedroom loft, 600 square feet, costs $189,900 ($316/sq.ft.) Townhomes start at $379,900, 1,200 square feet, two bedroom and den ($316/sq.ft.). Shelley Mantei and Chris Huggins paid $384,000 for their 900-square-foot, one-bedroom-plus-den ”with huge patio” ($426/sq.ft).

Rentable: Yes

Construction: Concrete, “rain-screen” technology

Warranty: St. Paul Guarantee 2-5-10

Presentation centre: 350 Kingsway (at 12th) and open daily from noon to 5 p.m.

Telephone: 604-879-4669

Website: www.somalofts.ca – and once there be sure to move the heater around the floor plans!

In her mind’s eye, Shelley Mantei can see the Sunday in Vancouver from which lifetime memories are created — she and future husband, Chris Huggins, snug in their SOMA loft thanks to one of the project’s options, a mobile electric fireplace.

“‘Chris thinks it’s a bit silly, but I had no doubt I would buy it — I am looking forward to rolling it into the bedroom on a rainy Sunday,” the 35-year-old marketing executive says of the fireplace.

SOMA is the latest invitation from a veteran Lower Mainland builder and developer, Leon Bogner, to make our homes in places and ways that might never occur to us until someone like him comes along and knocks on the door.

At 11th and Prince Edward, SOMA is a westside sensibility four blocks, officially, into the East End.

”When I was a kid, growing up here, Cambie was the eastern edge of the westside. Now it’s moved over, minimally, to Main,” says Bogner, a builder and developer for more than 30 years.

He attributes the crumbling of the city’s core east-west boundary to younger Vancouverites, native and newcomer, and the merchants and food-and-beverage purveyors who cater to them.

”What I’m finding is younger people, people my children’s age who are getting married and buying houses, think this whole area desirable now. Where in my youth this was not all that desirable. I find it very curious, this sort of evolution. We’re in a transition here,” Bogner says.

SOMA buyer Mantei, an Edmonton native and Vancouver resident for seven years now, may not share Bogner’s memories, but certainly shares his excitement about the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood.

”We chose SOMA because we wanted the loft lifestyle and all the creative-minded neighbours it attracts to form a community,” the marketing executive reports.

”At the same time we’re just as interested in the community developing outside of SOMA –on one side of SOMA will be Mount Pleasant’s new school, library and community centre, and on the other side are the boutique stores and cafes that make Main Street a growing shopping attraction. A community within a community.”

The new community centre city hall is planning will be located on the east side of Kingsway between Seventh and Eighth. At city hall, it’s called 1 Kingsway and will consist of the community centre, a library and rental housing owned by the city.

CREDIT: Victor Bonderoff, Vancouver Sun

Under the SOMA permit issued by city hall, Bogner is making a small contribution to the project: The sidewalk on the Prince Edward side of SOMA will be part of an expanded “Mount Pleasant Wellness Walkway” that will connect Mount St. Joseph‘s Hospital and 1 Kingsway.

The sidewalk will be wider than usual, its benches will have only one arm to make them accessible to wheelchair users, and the plants will be fragrant identifiers of location for the sight-impaired.

History, his and the city’s, and geography, the project’s and the city’s, have guided Bogner’s efforts at SOMA.

”When we took a look at this area, we decided we had to come up with a building that was edgy and trendy. We think this is an edgy area.

”So we thought, let’s go with a newer, refined version of a loft. Instead of being two-storey, we’ll do larger, open spaces.”

Bogner has built lofts before. Perhaps his most famous foray into “edgy” territory are the New Yorker lofts he developed in Yaletown, in his memory the first loft-conversion in the warehouse district. The New Yorker is one of the inspiration for SOMA, he says. The live-work studios down the Mount Pleasant slope (and to the north) are another. “They’re a simplified version of what we’re doing, rougher, not as refined.

”To zero in on something that reflects what people think when they think lofts,” Bogner has thought expansively, and included high ceilings and big windows and appropriately scaled cabinetry.

Walls in all the residences but those on the top storey are 10 feet floor to ceiling. On the top storey, the penthouse residences feature sleeping lofts and, as a result, some walls that are 18 feet floor to ceiling.

“What I thought would be very important, because a lot of our weather is dull and grey, are huge windows . . . almost 10 feet tall and, in some places, 20 feet wide, virtually a window-wall.

“If you take a look at a conventional condominium, you’re going to see a patio door or maybe a patio door and a smaller window, that generally provides light into perhaps a bedroom. Here, on the other hand, the windows are massive.”

No more than a parking lot when Bogner bought it, the SOMA site is about 46 metres up the Mount Pleasant slope from False Creek and rises about two metres between its northern and southern boundaries, between the lane that parallels East Eleventh and East Eleventh itself.

Owners’ views to the north and west, accordingly, will be consistently stunning, grey day, blue day, bad day, good day, wet day, dry day. The fifth-storey loft Shelley Mantei and Chris Huggins bought looks north and their patio north and west.

Ambitious floor-to-ceiling cabinetry in the kitchen display also impressed Mantei. “Most lofts are big on being airy and open — but short on storage space,” she says. “These roomy cabinets are a definite solution to having one without compromising the other.

“However, being on the shorter side I’ll be fully utilizing a step-ladder or calling for Chris’s help — well worth it.”

She may not need to buy a ladder. Bogner promises “something cute, which we haven’t disclosed” to assist owners to reach their top cabinets. “People are always looking for storage, especially people living in a condominium.”

And, if Leon Bogner promises “something cute,” it will be. The mobile electric fireplace that Mantei and Huggins bought is already warming the project’s presentation centre.

© The Vancouver Sun 2004