Two rental towers of up to 29 storeys will be proposed for the site of the former Mountain Equipment Co-op flagship store at 130 West Broadway in Vancouver under a rezoning application being prepped for submission next month.
“The proposal would include two secured rental towers (28-29 stories in height) on top of a commercial podium comprised of childcare, retail, restaurant and fitness space, a public park, and below-grade parking,” stated a letter developers Reliance Properties Ltd. and QuadReal Property Group distributed to neighbours earlier this month.
The letter says the proposal conforms to the recently approved Broadway Plan, which envisions “a mix of housing, job space, public amenities, and streetscape improvements including an active public realm” for the site.
“The design … is not that much different from the one we drew up back in 2017, 2018. It’s just that we couldn’t move it forward because it couldn’t be supported under the existing zoning,” said Jon Stovell, president of Reliance, which acquired the site in 2015. “It required the Broadway rezoning policy to be supported under that form or height.”
Previous proposals always envisioned rental housing on the site, but the scale was impossible prior to the Broadway Plan’s approval in July. Now that letters of inquiry and rezoning applications are permitted, Reliance and QuadReal are moving forward to submit a rezoning application for consideration by the new council.
“We pursued, for a long time, various options under a secured market rental or Rental 100 type of application,” Stovell said. “But neither we nor the city was very happy with the outcome that could be supported by the existing zoning, and everybody decided that it would be better to wait until there was a clearer pathway to what could be done with the site.”
Given the amount of work undertaken on previous proposals for the site, Reliance and QuadReal are moving directly to a rezoning application rather than submitting a letter of inquiry first.
While the Broadway Plan doesn’t require developers to consult with the community prior to submitting an application, Reliance and QuadReal are doing so to avoid surprises during the approval process.
“As with all our projects, the partnership is committed to each community in which we build, and we strive to gain an understanding of and hopefully address our neighbours' priorities and concerns through open dialogue,” the letter to neighbours stated. “With this in mind, we would look forward to a conversation with you as our neighbour.”
“We’re doing the next best thing, which is to try and inform immediately impacted neighbours of what’s coming,” Stovell said.
The city has told Stovell that more than 60 letters of inquiry have been received for properties since approval of the Broadway Plan in July. By moving directly to rezoning, 130 West Broadway is potentially one of the first projects set for completion under the new plan.
The exact timeline will depend on the length and success of the approval process, which remains lengthy. It’s safe to say construction won’t begin before 2024, however, a year before the Broadway Subway Project is set to open.
Redevelopment of the block will add life to a block dominated by what Stovell described as “the ultimate white elephant building,” a former car dealership-turned-big box store that has sat largely vacant since MEC vacated it for a new flagship store in the Olympic Village in 2020. The current building is 52,486 square feet.
“This application has zero displacement of existing rental residential, which is one of the main bugbears and complaints of the Broadway Plan,” he said. “Literally nothing will be lost. It’s just a dead block right now.”
