OneCity proposes redeveloping Kingsgate Mall with a school, rental housing, and pool | Daily Hive

OneCity proposes redeveloping Vancouver's Kingsgate Mall with a school, rental housing, community centre, pool, and childcare

Exterior of Kingsgate Mall in Vancouver. (Beedie)

If their candidates are elected during the civic election on Saturday, Oct. 17, 2026, the OneCity Vancouver party would push for the redevelopment of Kingsgate Mall, which is owned by the Vancouver School Board.

The party is proposing to turn the 3.2-acre shopping centre property at the southeast corner of the intersection of East Broadway and Kingsway into a new mixed-use complex with a public school, community centre, and affordable and subsidized secured purpose-built rental housing for School Board employees.

OneCity envisions bringing services together within a redevelopment of the Kingsgate Mall property, including general public childcare, Indigenous childcare, and care for children before and after school.

The proposed school would include what the party describes as “a vertical flex space.”

An aquatic centre could also be considered. OneCity is promising to examine whether a long-discussed pool for Mount Pleasant could be accommodated on the Kingsgate Mall site. Mount Pleasant is also identified by OneCity as one of three locations that should be explored to fulfill a new 50-metre pool, following the demolition of the West End’s Vancouver Aquatic Centre for a new facility with a 25-metre pool.

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Their plan calls for collaboration between Vancouver City Council, Vancouver Park Board, and Vancouver School Board, as well as other public and private partners. The party notes that First Nations would also be involved in the planning.

Although OneCity does not have a mayoral candidate in the civic election — after William Azaroff dropped out and endorsed Green Party of Vancouver mayoral candidate Pete Fry — the party is still running candidates in all three elected bodies of local government.

The “Large and Unique Sites” designation of Kingsgate Mall in the Broadway Plan. (City of Vancouver)

Exterior of Kingsgate Mall in Vancouver. (Beedie)

OneCity asserts that Kingsgate Mall’s location near major public transit services — frequent bus routes and its close proximity to SkyTrain’s future Mount Pleasant Station (on the corner of Main Street and East Broadway) — makes it suitable for a broader range of uses. This is also supported by the City’s Broadway Plan.

It also sees redevelopment as an opportunity to provide Vancouver’s public school system with a new greater source of annual operating revenue. Alongside rent, the party identifies potential payments for granting rights to use portions of the property or build above it.

Currently, the property is leased and operated by local developer Beedie, which has a 99-year over the entire mall site. The lease first began in 1972 under a different entity, with Beedie taking over the lease in 2005.

In recent years, the School Board and Beedie have been engaged in a court challenge over rent.

In March 2026, the B.C. Court of Appeal ruled in Beedie’s favour in its Kingsgate Mall rent dispute with the School Board. That decision by a judge upheld annual basic rent of $1.65 million for the 2017-2027 lease term, instead of the $9.6 million set by a 2022 arbitration decision.

The dispute centred on how to value the property when calculating rent. A 1999 arbitration decision had established that the calculation should reflect development allowed under the site’s existing zoning. However, the 2022 arbitrators used a different interpretation that included larger developments requiring discretionary municipal government approval, producing a much higher land value and rent.

The appeal court ruled that the earlier interpretation remained binding and could not simply be revisited because later arbitrators disagreed with it. This left the land valued at $20 million for the lease’s rent calculation, rather than $116.5 million.

The court ruling also outlines some of Kingsgate Mall’s redevelopment potential under its existing zoning. Retail development is permitted outright with a total floor area equivalent to the site’s land area. A larger development, including residential uses, could reach three times the site’s land area.

A redevelopment with the scale, high density, and mix of major uses envisioned by OneCity would almost certainly require rezoning.

The idea of redeveloping Kingsgate Mall has been floated repeatedly for well over a decade. In 2023, the School Board also considered a potential sale or redevelopment and the process of submitting a rezoning application.

Inside Kingsgate Mall in Vancouver. (Beedie)

Exterior of Kingsgate Mall in Vancouver. (Beedie)

Building a new Britannia civic campus, with public benefits requirements for a Canucks practice facility

Kingsgate Mall is one of two “Community Hub” redevelopment proposals outlined by OneCity.

The other would involve rebuilding the entire 18-acre Britannia civic site in East Vancouver’s Grandview-Woodland neighbourhood, bringing its schools and community facilities together through a coordinated project called “One Britannia.”

Under that proposal, Britannia’s elementary and secondary schools would be replaced as part of a broader complete campus redevelopment that would also include a brand-new community centre, an ice rink, and other recreational spaces, including feasibility work for a potential aquatic centre.

Childcare, food programs, social development programs, and non-market housing would also form part of the new Britannia campus.

The party also outlines conditions it wants attached to any agreement with the NHL’s Vancouver Canucks involving the site. In July 2026, Canucks Sports and Entertainment and the City of Vancouver announced they had signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to explore the possibility of building a dedicated training centre at Britannia, with preliminary artistic renderings showing a new five-storey building — containing office and team spaces — as an expansion of the site’s existing old ice rink. This would fulfill the Canucks’ much-needed dedicated practice facility and rink needs.

Existing site and condition of the Britannia civic hub in East Vancouver. (City of Vancouver)

Potential concept of the training centre building addition for the Canucks practice facility at the existing Britannia ice rink. (Francl Architecture/Vancouver Canucks)

OneCity asserts that such a deal with the Canucks should contain legal commitments to secure public benefits, increase ice time for young people, and maintain public control of the property. After the MOU was signed, some members of the public and minor hockey associations criticized how this could reduce ice time for the public and other existing rink users. As well, there have been some suggestions that the Canucks should help fund and build a second ice rink at the Britannia site.

The party wants to use the Britannia project to test how public services can share facilities and apply those lessons elsewhere in Vancouver.

The original master plan for redeveloping the Britannia site was first approved by the Vision Vancouver party-led Park Board in 2018. At that previous approval juncture, the intention was to proceed into rezoning in 2019 and detailed design in 2020, with construction on the multi-phased project spanning a timeline of 10 to 20 years.

However, there has been no progress on implementation, with Park Board staff stating in an internal memo in Fall 2025 that they are now returning to the preliminary planning stage for the renewal of the facilities.