Elementary school and housing complex planned for Coal Harbour

Site of 480 Broughton Street, Vancouver. (Google Maps)

A long-planned elementary school on a ground-level parking lot next to Coal Harbour Community Centre is taking the next steps forward in the form of a mixed-use complex with a larger scope that includes non-market housing.

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Following a contract bidding process, the City of Vancouver has selected Henriquez Partners Architects to design Coal Harbour Phase II at 480 Broughton Street — the northeast corner of West Hastings Street and Broughton Street, immediately south of the Coal Harbour seawall.

480 Broughton Street, Vancouver Coal Harbour Community Centre

Site of 480 Broughton Street, Vancouver. (Google Maps)

The proposal envisions a 10-storey complex with a 37,000-sq-ft elementary school for up to 320 students, a 69-space childcare facility, and about 45,000 sq. ft. of non-market housing providing up to 60 units.

The contract value of the design work to be undertaken by the architectural firm is worth $5 million, on top of nearly $60 million of hard costs. The elementary school component is expected to cost about $23 million, the childcare facility is approximately $9 million, and the housing component is over $25 million.

These costs also include required parking modifications to the community centre and renovations to the community centre’s rooftop public park.

Other project scopes cover a high degree of green building design that must meet LEED Gold, Passive House, and Zero Carbon Building Standard accreditations.

This project is in partnership with the Vancouver School Board, which reached an agreement with BC Hydro last year to allow the electric utility to use its Lord Roberts Annex school site for a new underground substation.

In return, the school board is receiving $75 million to cover the cost of building the new replacement school over the Lord Roberts Annex site — on top of the substation — and the new Coal Harbour elementary school.

The new school facility in Coal Harbour will be constructed first to provide a temporary home for Lord Roberts Annex students.

Design work is slated to occur through June 2020, with the proposal entering the development permit stage between March 2020 and December 2020.

Subject to further approvals, including possibly funding from city council, construction could begin in June 2021 for a completion by the fall of 2023.

Crosstown Elementary School. (Kenneth Chan / Daily Hive)

In 2017, the school board opened its new 500-student capacity Crosstown Elementary School on Expo Boulevard, across from Rogers Arena, at a cost of about $20 million.

There are continued calls for more elementary school capacity in and around the downtown peninsula due to high enrolment, resulting in waitlists. More recently, there have been some public calls to construct the planned elementary school next to Hinge Park, just east of Olympic Village.

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