Approved Burrard Bridge rental towers could reap $1 billion for City of Vancouver | Daily Hive

Approved municipally owned Burrard Bridge rental housing towers could provide $1 billion in long-term revenue for City of Vancouver

May 2025 revised concept of 1402-1460 Burrard St., 900 Pacific St., and 1441-1451 Hornby St., Vancouver. (Diamond Schmitt Architects/City of Vancouver)

Not to be confused with the Squamish Nation’s Senakw grove of towers rising at the south end of the Burrard Street Bridge, another major secured purpose-built market rental housing cluster has now been greenlit for the north end of the bridge in downtown Vancouver.

This City of Vancouver-spearheaded project will generate 1,089 secured purpose-built market rental homes on the 1.8-acre property owned by the municipal government at the southwest corner of Burrard Street and Pacific Street.

The development will feature two highly prominent towers, serving as a visual gateway into downtown Vancouver from the bridge and at the mouth of False Creek. The towers will reach 541 ft. with 52 storeys and 416 ft. with 40 storeys, along with a four-storey base podium containing 13,000 sq. ft. of local-serving retail and restaurant space at the ground level.

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During a public hearing on Tuesday evening, Vancouver City Council approved City staff’s rezoning application in an 8-2 vote, with Green city councillor Pete Fry and COPE city councillor Sean Orr opposed.

This project is one of six proposed 100 per cent market rental housing projects envisioned by the City, with three already moving through the advanced stages of the rezoning process under the proponent leadership of the City’s Vancouver Housing Development Office (VHDO). The intention is to create rental homes suitable for working middle-income households, while also providing the City with a significant long-term revenue source that reduces its current overwhelming dependence on property tax and utility fee increases.

Brad Foster, director of the VHDO, told City Council during the public hearing that, as it currently stands with the project’s market-centric uses, the City is positioned to gain about $1.02 billion in revenue from rental income over the first 35 to 40 years of the buildings’ lifespan.

Upon rezoning, City staff anticipate the value of the land assembly at 1402-1462 Burrard St., 1401-1451 Hornby St. and 900 Pacific St. will increase to about $90 million — up from BC Assessment’s assessed value of $51 million for the land only as of July 2025, not including the value of the to-be-demolished old two-storey commercial structures. The valuation upon completion and occupancy is estimated at about $1.2 billion.

The estimated construction cost is $900 million. It would still have to pay more than $28 million in municipal development cost levies — not including the development cost charges of Metro Vancouver Regional District and TransLink.

1402-1460 Burrard Street 900 Pacific Street 1401-1451 Hornby Street Vancouver Burrard Bridge tower

Location of the Vancouver Housing Development Office site of 1402-1460 Burrard St., 900 Pacific St., and 1401-1451 Hornby St., Vancouver. (Google Maps)

Site of 1402-1460 Burrard St., 900 Pacific St., and 1401-1451 Hornby St., Vancouver, situated at the north end of the Burrard Street Bridge (left) in relation to Senakw at the south end of the bridge (right). (Squamish Nation)

1402-1460 Burrard Street 900 Pacific Street 1441-1451 Hornby Street Vancouver rental housing May 2025

May 2025 revised concept of 1402-1460 Burrard St., 900 Pacific St., and 1441-1451 Hornby St., Vancouver. (Diamond Schmitt Architects/City of Vancouver)

May 2025 revised concept of 1402-1460 Burrard St., 900 Pacific St., and 1441-1451 Hornby St., Vancouver, with the surrounding developments also highlighted. (Diamond Schmitt Architects/City of Vancouver)

Uncertain future for such projects due to City Council’s previous decision to not form a City-owned, for-profit development company

However, the path forward for this project — and others like it led by the VHDO — remains highly uncertain, not only because of its high upfront capital cost.

While approval of the rezoning application secures the development rights, the City does not yet have a finalized structure to finance and deliver a project of this scale. City staff stated during the public hearing that, without new financial arrangements or improvements in market conditions, construction may not begin for another two to three years. The subsequent development permit and building permit stages could also take another year or more, at minimum.

Currently, there is no City-led mechanism to proceed with such projects because, in October 2025, non-ABC city councillors rejected City staff’s framework to create a new City-owned, for-profit real estate development company — technically called a Government Business Enterprise (GBE). This entity was intended to operate at arm’s length to oversee construction financing, detailed design, and construction.

The City-owned company would have been able to borrow money for construction financing — including pursuing low-interest loan programs from the provincial and federal governments — without affecting the municipal government’s debt levels or credit rating, and could have established partnerships with private developers to reduce required capital contributions.

Existing condition:

Location of the Vancouver Housing Development Office site of 1402-1460 Burrard Street, 900 Pacific Street, and 1401-1451 Hornby Street, Vancouver. (Google Maps)

Future condition:

May 2025 revised concept of 1402-1460 Burrard St., 900 Pacific St., and 1441-1451 Hornby St., Vancouver. (Diamond Schmitt Architects/City of Vancouver)

In this rare scenario in October 2025, the minority contingent of non-ABC city councillors was able to drive policy, as approval of the sale of City-owned land under the City’s Property Endowment Fund to the new company required a two-thirds majority vote, rather than the usual simple majority.

In October 2025, city councillors from the COPE, the Greens, OneCity, and Vote Vancouver parties expressed a desire for the City-owned company’s projects to include a below-market rental housing component, rather than building only for-profit market rental housing to maximize municipal rental income for general revenues. They suggested the City should follow the same policies it requires of private developers, which typically set aside 80 per cent of units for market rentals and 20 per cent for below-market rentals.

These opposition city councillors also wanted rental income to be dedicated to building new affordable housing projects, instead of flowing into the City’s general revenues.

However, at the time in October 2025, and again during Tuesday’s public hearing, Mayor Ken Sim and his ABC councillors argued that these should be for-profit market rental housing projects to maximize revenue opportunities to cover the City’s growing operating and capital costs — especially for new and improved community and recreational facilities, utilities, and infrastructure. They added that there would still be opportunities to use some of the revenue to support affordable housing projects, but not exclusively for that single purpose as urged by the opposition city councillors.

Not financially possible to pivot into an affordable housing project

The same debates and arguments from October 2025 resurfaced during Tuesday’s public hearing for this project, with City staff again chiming in.

“Going forward, we’re going to have to think, and we are doing so now about alternative strategies on how we can finance and deliver a project of this magnitude and still remain true to our mission to provide the ongoing income stream to the City in perpetuity,” said Foster during the public hearing, emphasizing that “market timing is an important factor.”

When it comes to moving forward on specific projects after rezoning approval, Foster continued, “the next phase is really to get into those business partnerships to look for the development opportunity. And that’s a piece of work that would happen subsequent to getting the entitlements in place. If you don’t have the property prepared, you can’t move ahead.”

Answering a question about whether such a market rental housing project spearheaded by a City-owned company would compete directly with private developers, City staff asserted that the first two projects under consideration represent roughly five per cent of the City’s housing development targets, with the City-owned company merely being another player in the market and accounting for a small proportion of overall new supply.

“I think we all know that the development community has made comments about having concern around this being competitive with projects that they’re building. However, we are actually not in competition with them. If you actually look at what the housing development targets are for the City of Vancouver, this represents about five per cent. I can’t imagine why five per cent would be a problem for a developer,” said City staff.

May 2025 revised concept of 1402-1460 Burrard St., 900 Pacific St., and 1441-1451 Hornby St., Vancouver. (Diamond Schmitt Architects/City of Vancouver)

When asked whether this project could be pivoted into “highly affordable housing,” City staff explained it would require very significant financial support from the provincial government, effectively wiping out major funding pools meant to support projects across B.C.

Such a theoretical 100 per cent below-market affordable rental housing approach could affect the delivery of Vancouver’s other affordable housing projects, leaving no funding available elsewhere in the city.

“At this point, the only way that you could deliver the affordability that I suspect is wanted is with a provincial investment. There is absolutely no way that we could actually get the depth of affordability without public dollar investment by the province,” said City staff.

“If you actually look at the scale of what we’re talking about today, you’re at about 1,800 units with both these projects. That means that you would cannibalize every provincial investment for the next three years on just these two projects.”

The 100 per cent market rental housing approach also serves to provide a buffer and cushion for any potential financial risk for such a major undertaking.

At times during the public hearing, City staff appeared unusually frustrated with some of the questions posed by certain city councillors, who were challenging the logic, approach, and feasibility of the for-profit project.

Residents and businesses “don’t wanna be taxed to the hilt”

Revisiting the October 2025 rejection of the framework for the City-owned development company, ABC city councillor Lisa Dominato called that earlier decision a “missed opportunity” during the public hearing.

Dominato reiterated City Council had been presented with a framework by City staff that would “leverage private capital and senior government financing opportunities without impacting the City’s debt capacity and credit ratings” while also helping “mitigate our liability exposure,” noting this was “daylighted as part of those discussions.”

She said the framework “would deliver much-needed rental housing,” while also generating public benefits, including “the ability to address infrastructure deficits” and “the ability to invest in social and co-op housing” as a spinoff. She added that the public is “demanding that we be responsive to a myriad of issues today,” but noted that while many issues fall under other levels of government, this approach is “directly within our purview of leveraging our own land, our own asset.”

Dominato argued that other governments “would do this in the flash” and “wouldn’t even blink,” noting that “provincial [and] federal governments are [already] doing this” on land they own. She said City Council should “absolutely go forward with the rezoning” in hopes that the framework could be adopted in the future, adding that “this is exactly what the public wants.”

“They want us to get creative. They don’t wanna be taxed to the hilt, and they want us to develop housing and be an enabler,” said Dominato.

May 2025 revised concept of 1402-1460 Burrard St., 900 Pacific St., and 1441-1451 Hornby St., Vancouver. (Diamond Schmitt Architects/City of Vancouver)

Both Dominato and ABC city councillor Sarah Kirby-Yung also noted that similar revenue-generating housing strategies are already used by UBC Properties Trust to support the University of British Columbia’s operations, as well as by various municipal governments locally and elsewhere in the country.

ABC city councillor Mike Klassen spent over a minute listing dozens of types of civic facilities, infrastructure, community amenities, and affordable housing the revenue generated could help fund, while Mayor Ken Sim in his remarks appeared to suggest that at least some of the opposition city councillors may have rejected the GBE framework for political reasons.

In explaining both his continued opposition to the creation of the City-owned, for-profit development company and the Burrard/Pacific/Hornby project, Green city councillor Pete Fry emphasized the importance of incorporating a below-market rental housing component through upholding inclusionary zoning principles.

“We have a shared responsibility to ensure that folks of all incomes can continue to call this place home, and inclusionary zoning is one of those tools that helps us meet that responsibility. It’s not about burdening development,” said Fry during the public hearing.

“What was being proposed here is creaming off some of the profit that we are hoping to see that can go into Council priorities. So this isn’t burdening development, it’s about creating balance. It’s making sure that as our city grows, it also grows fairer, more inclusive, more resilient. And inclusionary zoning means that it’s there at the start, and it’s there as we are considering it. It’s not left to a future Council to maybe invest in affordable housing. It’s not left to chance. It’s a statement of our values.”

The rezoning application for this Burrard/Pacific/Hornby project was first submitted in December 2024. In May 2025, a revised rezoning application was submitted, with some minor reductions in density and the number of homes, and design adjustments of the base podium and the public spaces. This project will provide a new north-south pedestrian connection between Pacific Street and towards False Creek, with retail and restaurants activating this space.

The total building floor area will reach about 869,000 sq. ft., establishing a floor area ratio density of a floor area that is 11.83 times larger than the size of the lot. Four underground levels will accommodate about 330 vehicle parking stalls and more than 1,900 secured bike parking spaces. The project is designed by Diamond Schmitt Architects and landscape architectural firm PWL Partnership.

December 2024 original concept (left) and May 2025 revised concept (right) of 1402-1460 Burrard St., 900 Pacific St., and 1441-1451 Hornby St., Vancouver. (Diamond Schmitt Architects/City of Vancouver)

May 2025 revised concept of 1402-1460 Burrard St., 900 Pacific St., and 1441-1451 Hornby St., Vancouver. (Diamond Schmitt Architects/City of Vancouver)

During the same public hearing on Tuesday evening, City Council was scheduled to hear from public speakers and deliberate on VHDO’s second rezoning application outlining the for-profit market rental housing project of 1405 Main St. and 1510 Quebec St., replacing the City-owned surface vehicle parking lot immediately south of SkyTrain’s Main Street-Science World Station. There would be two towers of 42 storeys and 25 storeys, reaching up to 425 ft., containing 780 secured purpose-built market rental homes and ground-level retail/restaurant uses.

However, they ran out of time and could not begin the process to listen to public speakers, and then deliberate and vote on the Main/Quebec project. The public hearing for this separate project is now scheduled for next week.

If fully achieved, both the Burrard/Pacific/Hornby and Main/Quebec projects would generate a combined total of 1,869 market rental homes.

In total, across the six City-owned sites originally envisioned for projects led by the GBE, there would be 4,000 market rental homes within mixed-use developments. Other sites include the newly-created City-owned parcels at the north end of the Granville Street Bridge (former footprint of the bridge’s loops), the 2400 Motel at 1500 Kingsway in the Renfrew-Collingwood neighbourhood, 8324-8486 Granville St. in the Marpole neighbourhood, and 3917-3981 Main St. in the Riley Park-Little Mountain neighbourhood.

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