Two local developers are proposing to spend $500 million to build a 775,000-square-foot mixed-use complex, including a 48-storey tower, at the northwest corner of Hornby and Drake streets, but the plan is contingent upon Vancouver city council approving a higher height limit for the Jim Pattison Toyota site.
Current zoning limits tower height on the site to 350 feet. That’s 116 feet shorter than one of the three structures that Jim Pattison Developments Ltd. and Reliance Properties Ltd. executives envision for the site.
The other two proposed structures are a 36-storey, 355-foot-tall tower on Hornby Street and a 13-storey, 184-foot-tall office tower on Burrard Street.
When council ponders raising the Pattison site’s height limit later this year, it will also consider increasing the height limits for five other sites in the downtown peninsula:
- on Seymour Street between Beach Avenue and Pacific Boulevard;
- on Howe Street between Beach Avenue and Pacific Boulevard;
- on Burrard Street between Alberni Street and Georgia Street, where there is a Bell store and a Tiffany and Co. jewelry store;
- on Burrard Street between Alberni Street and a lane, where there is a Hermčs boutique; and
- next to the Loden Hotel between Bute and Thurlow streets on Melville Street.
No developers have proposed projects for any of the five sites.
Approving them as locations for future tall towers is not a sure bet because council has consistently protected view corridors from various parts of the city to the North Shore mountains.
In January, council considered and then rejected three other sites as possible locations for tall towers because they affected view corridors from Cambie Street and the Cambie Bridge.
The rejected sites were:
- the Hudson’s Bay Co. parkade on Seymour Street;
- the former Greyhound bus depot known as Larwill Park; and
- on Georgia Street at the western end of the Georgia viaduct.
The fourth site, for which council deferred its decision in January, was Jim Pattison Toyota.
“The Pattison site was always somewhat different from the other three in January this way,” senior city planner Kevin McNaney told Business in Vancouver. “The Pattison site only impacts the Queen Elizabeth Park view corridor, which is allowed to be impacted as part of the higher building process because the view itself is from far back and the skyline is part of the view.”
Indeed, the Shangri-La Hotel and One Wall Centre interrupt the mountain view from Queen Elizabeth Park.McNaney believes the other five sites, for which council will consider raising building height limits, similarly pose little risk to view corridors.
Still, IBI-HB Architects associate director Jim Hancock is not taking city approval for granted either for the Pattison site’s rezoning or for final approval of his working concept.
“The city will put us through a higher degree of scrutiny because it’s a tall building,” he said.
Hancock does not expect shovels to be in the ground on the site for at least two years thanks to lengthy waits for rezoning, a development permit and then a building permit.
During that time there will be extensive consultation with neighbours.
Hancock envisions that project site amenities will include:
- a day care;
- a Toyota car-share program;
- meeting rooms, pool, fitness centre and outdoor roof decks; and
- a 50,000-square-foot, three-storey Toyota dealership that would look like a glass cube and front Burrard Street with four levels of service facilities located below ground.
About 75% of the project is expected to be residential. It will include 79 rental units and 550 condos.
The buildings are expected to be joined on the lower several floors to form a podium. In the 48-storey structure, offices would occupy three floors.
Hancock has recently worked on several other iconic Vancouver structures, including Three Harbour Green, the Rosewood Hotel Georgia and West Pender Place.