Apparently. I wrote an article a few years ago about how you could turn that eastern portion into an amazing park with very little effort. Some benches, cement, and a chip trail. A couple of city councillors liked the idea but then came back and said, it is apparently a boulevard, not a park and so oh well...

So... is that grey stucco along Cook Street? Did I miss a memo? Please don't tell me the entire building will be looking the same as that. Nparker must be doing flips in his grave worthy of the gold medal right about now.

He who lives in pink stucco shall cast the first stone.

^Scripture and Victoria's development controversies tend to go together like oil and water

Anyway, Zoomer summarizes the stucco situation on Wellburns:

"A stucco facade has been proposed in lieu of the UHPC facade panels to make the project financially viable."

The City of Victoria comments on the stucco:

Concerns about durability and cleaning of the light-coloured stucco at grade level. COV suggests exploring a different material and/or extending the white brick along the podium of the new building to accentuate the ground floor and provide more durable, easier to clean finish. COV recommended a different colour for the 4 storey volume to show contrast between the two volumes. COV suggests for MGA to do a closer study of the ground floor facade material.

The developers response:

The preferred design direction is to provide a darker stucco texture to the 4-storey volume, applied over a solid impact-resistant substrate. This durable substrate will be an upgrade beyond standard/conventional substrates providing enhanced durability. An alternate option was studied, providing a darker material for the lower level. This resulted in a non-cohesive and more distracting overall design. With the proposed design option, the new-built still works has a background role for the heritage building, consistent with the original Heritage and DP intent.

When this kind of thing happens it exposes yet again just how inept the CoV's processes can be re: development and construction. So much micro-analysis and hand-wringing over irrelevant considerations, and yet consistently missing the big picture re: fundamental considerations that actually matter.