3,400 homes proposed next to SkyTrain Brentwood Station (RENDERINGS)

Preliminary artistic rendering of the master plan for Grosvenor Brentwood. (Perkins & Will/Grosvenor Americas)

Grosvenor Americas has released the first visuals of its proposed major mixed-use redevelopment immediately southeast of SkyTrain Brentwood Town Centre Station and The Amazing Brentwood mall.

Public consultation will begin later this month on the proposed master plan of Grosvenor Brentwood to build six towers up to 65 storeys on the eight-acre site at 4612 Lougheed Highway and 2040-2150 Alpha Avenue. This follows Burnaby City Council’s approval on Monday on allowing the developer to formally gauge public input.

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The proposal calls for about 3,400 homes, including about 2,000 market rental homes, 450 below-market rental homes with rents set at 20% below Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation median rental rates, and 900 condominium homes, plus 200,000 sq ft of office and retail space.

The UK-based international developer acquired the site in early 2020. It says this Brentwood project will be the firm’s largest mixed-use development in North America, and it also includes the tallest 100% rental housing tower in Western Canada at over 60 storeys.

Grosvenor Brentwood Public Realm - Central Oasis

Preliminary artistic rendering of the master plan for Grosvenor Brentwood. (Perkins & Will/Grosvenor Americas)

Grosvenor Brentwood Master Plan - Overall Site Plan

Preliminary artistic rendering of the master plan for Grosvenor Brentwood. (Perkins & Will/Grosvenor Americas)

“We are really excited about what this large-scale community will mean for residents and for the general public, for meeting the housing and sustainability challenges facing our region, and for the opportunity to create a genuine sense of community in one of Metro Vancouver’s fastest-growing and most exciting neighbourhoods. These sorts of projects are usually exclusively for residents, but we’ve maintained from the beginning that it has to be for the entire community,” said Marc Josephson, senior vice president of development with Grosvenor, in a statement.

“Burnaby has shown leadership in encouraging the development of rental housing and housing of all forms for everyone. That opened up this great opportunity to deliver much-needed rental housing at a significant scale.”

Grosvenor Brentwood NW Aerial View with Phase 1 Towers

Preliminary artistic rendering of the master plan for Grosvenor Brentwood. (Perkins & Will/Grosvenor Americas)

Grosvenor Brentwood Master Plan Overview with Community Centre

Preliminary artistic rendering of the master plan for Grosvenor Brentwood. (Perkins & Will/Grosvenor Americas)

As well, this will be one of the largest projects of this scale to pursue a pedestrian-oriented public realm plan. Usually, for a site of this size, new roads for vehicles would cross through the site, creating new city blocks in some cases, but the proponents have instead created a concept of 2.7 acres of pedestrian-oriented spaces of plazas, parks, open spaces, gardens, and other public spaces.

Access to underground parking will be established on the perimeter of the site from existing streets.

“This is a truly unprecedented development with more than half of the site dedicated to open space including landscaped plazas and courtyards, around which all buildings are focused,” says Ryan Bragg, principal of Perkins & Will, the architectural firm leading the design.

“Typically in this type of development, instead of plazas and courtyards, there would be streets and space to support vehicles, but here there will be no cars, just trails and green space. It’s a complete paradigm shift for the region.”

According to the municipal government, the tallest tower is at the northwest corner — closest to the SkyTrain station. This tallest tower on-site would have condominiums and rental housing attached to a podium with additional housing, office, and retail space within the lower floors. This portion of the development, known as “Urban Gateway District,” serves as the primary gateway into the site from the station.

The other five towers range in height from 30 to 60 storeys and also have podiums with a mix of uses.

Preliminary artistic rendering of the master plan for Grosvenor Brentwood. (Perkins & Will/Grosvenor Americas)

grosvenor americas brentwood burnaby master plan

Preliminary master plan building and uses concept for Grosvenor Americas’ Brentwood redevelopment at 4612 Lougheed Highway and 2040-2150 Alpha Avenue. (Grosvenor Americas)

The redevelopment will be divided into five distinct districts. Other than the Urban Gateway, there will also be High Street, Oasis, Green Link, and Civic Heart.

High Street within the southwest corner of the site would feature a residential tower on top of a larger format anchor retail and grocery store space.

Oasis on the northeast corner could have the second tallest structures in the redevelopment, with market rental housing towers on top of non-market rental housing podiums with retail and office as the base.

The proposed redevelopment calls for about three million sq ft of total floor area with a wide range of mixed uses, establishing a total floor area ratio density of about nine times larger than the size of the lot. If approved, it will be built over several phases, with the master plan guiding future rezoning and development applications.

Grosvenor Americas property at Brentwood Town Centre in Burnaby. (Grosvenor Americas)

The Civic Heart, situated near the core of the site, fronting Dawson Street to the south, would feature a new municipally owned and operated multi-level community and recreational centre. It would be a cantilevering structure to provide a canopy for an adjacent plaza space that could host community events.

The 100,00 sq ft community centre is expected to carry a construction cost of $140 million and will be fully funded by developer fees collected by the city over the years. Grosvenor will be responsible for the management of the community centre’s construction.

Currently, a portion of the development site is occupied by a 1975-built, eight-storey office building, and another parcel largely vacant was previously a Chrysler dealership.

The proposed total floor area of this redevelopment is roughly 50% larger than the Brentwood West master plan concept involving Bosa Development — the northwest corner of the intersection of Lougheed Highway and Willingdon Avenue, just west of the SkyTrain station.

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