A decade after planning began and seven years since it was approved by city council, Concert Properties has started its massive North Harbour waterfront development in North Vancouver, the largest city project in decades.
North Harbour will begin with the development of four buildings at the eastern edge of the community. The first building will include 164 condominiums and townhomes in a nine-storey tower.
North Harbour plans include 17 mid-rise residential buildings, alongside approximately 290,000 square feet of retail, restaurants and office space.
As planned, there will be over 700 condominium homes, 110 rental homes in a 10-storey building and 125 seniors housing units, all built under a master plan that could take 10 to 15 years to complete.
There will be no light industrial buildings and all of the commercial space will be leased, not sold as strata, according to Brian McCauley, president and CEO of Concert.
Once complete, Concert will manage the 80,000-square-foot rental building at North Harbour. It will join Concert’s portfolio of 27 rental properties across Vancouver, Victoria and Toronto.
The delay in getting construction started on the 12-acre site including specific site engineering. It is the first in North Vancouver to require preloading to nearly five feet (1.5 metres) above the shoreline to mitigate against sea levels rising. COVID-19 added to the the timeline of what Concert expects to be a premier mixed-use development.
“The direct access to the waterfront is one of the most exciting aspects of North Harbour,” McCauley said in an email to Western Investor. The stepped design of the residential will provide most residents with views of the Inlet and downtown Vancouver.
The site is located at Fell Avenue and Harbourside Drive along the Burrard Inlet shoreline, and in close proximity to the SeaBus station that links to downtown Vancouver. The area is also home to the public Kings Mill Walk Park, which the city is planning to renew and improve.
The first-phase residential buildings are being built to LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Development) Gold standards and the BC Energy Step Code.
While marketing for the first-phase condominium and townhouses begins this spring, pricing has yet to be released, according to Concert.
