The design of Downtown Vancouver's new elementary school for 510 students | Daily Hive

This is the design of Downtown Vancouver's new elementary school for 510 students

2026 concept of the new Lord Roberts Annex Elementary School. (McFarland Marceau Architects/Vancouver School Board)

The new replacement Lord Roberts Annex Elementary School in the West End neighbourhood of Downtown Vancouver will have three-and-a-half times the enrolment capacity of the existing school building that sits at the Nelson Park location.

Vancouver School Board (VSB) has submitted its new development permit application to advance the new school building project, which is directly related and being coordinated with BC Hydro’s plan to build a new underground electrical substation under this city block with the park and school.

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This will be a new three-storey building on a 69,000 sq. ft. parcel on the southeast corner of the intersection of Bute Street and Nelson Street — largely on the footprint of the existing school’s outdoor playground.

The old one-storey school building just to the east will be demolished to make way for BC Hydro’s major utility infrastructure project, with the roof deck of the new West End substation underground structure set to become a vast outdoor play space for students.

west end substation nelson park bc hydro

2026 concept of the new West End Substation at Nelson Park, with the future new Lord Roberts Annex Secondary School site. (BC Hydro)

lord roberts annex elementary school vancouver design 2026

2026 concept of the new Lord Roberts Annex Elementary School. (McFarland Marceau Architects/Vancouver School Board)

In the 2024/2025 school year, VSB noted that the existing school was at capacity with 147 students between Kindergarten and Grade 3, and an extensive waitlist for registration.

In contrast, the new school will accommodate the full elementary spectrum from Kindergarten to Grade 7, with a capacity for 510 students.

The new school is intended to provide a major net gain in capacity to help meet both current and long-term enrolment needs. However, as of earlier this year, the school — which has yet to open — already had a waitlist, meaning it is effectively over capacity before welcoming its first students.

There will be 18 classrooms and three Kindergarten classrooms, as well as the supporting spaces of a library, multi-purpose rooms, a gymnasium, and ancillary spaces.

“Publicly-oriented spaces occupy the ground floor, to foster the use of the building as a community amenity. Academic spaces occupy the upper storeys. Strong connections to the surroundings are provided from the ground storey, while the upper storeys have more discrete overlooks of the streets and the park,” reads the design rationale by McFarland Marceau Architects.

“A covered area wraps much of the building to provide an amenable interface with the public on all four sides of the building, but primarily the east and west, where the community is welcomed.”

2026 concept of the new Lord Roberts Annex Elementary School. (McFarland Marceau Architects/Vancouver School Board)

Both the substation and school will share a vehicle access ramp from Bute Street, which will lead into a small underground vehicle parking facility with three accessible parking stalls, four service vehicle parking lots shared with BC Hydro, a secured bike parking room, and other supporting facilities.

Earlier this year, BC Hydro provided its substation design to the City of Vancouver for staff and public feedback, but it does not need to seek municipal government approval, as this project relates to provincial-level electrical utility infrastructure.

The ground-level outdoor school playground directly above the underground substation will feature several structures blended into the design of the play space to serve as continuous ventilation for the substantial heat generated by the substation. As well, heat exchangers will convert the exhaust air into a heat source for the school building’s hot water and spatial heating needs.

More than a decade in the making, the substation project is considered critically necessary to support the Downtown Vancouver peninsula’s growing long-term electricity needs, while also creating modern, seismically resilient infrastructure. It will replace the nearby 1950s-built, above-ground Dal Grauer Substation on Burrard Street, located next to Scotiabank Theatre.

nelson park west end substation vancouver

Artistic rendering of the excavation process for the underground substation at Nelson Park in downtown Vancouver. (BC Hydro)

2026 concept of the new West End Substation. (BC Hydro)

This project is also directly related to VSB’s other new school project of the cəw̓as Ch’elxwá7elch Skwuláw̓txw Seaside Elementary School on Downtown Vancouver’s Coal Harbour waterfront, which will reach full completion and open in September 2026. It has a capacity for 317 students within the first three levels of the 11-storey building, with the remaining levels dedicated to a 64-kid childcare facility and 60 units of social housing.

To enable the substation project, BC Hydro previously agreed to provide VSB with at least about $75 million — including capital contributions towards building the new Seaside and Lord Roberts Annex schools — and the Vancouver Park Board with $8 million.

The cost of building the new substation is estimated at about $1.03 billion, with construction beginning no earlier than late 2026. Once construction begins, it will take up to five years to build the new substation, with approximately three years for excavation and building the structure up to ground level, including the roof to form the lid. Then another two years will be required for the installation of the complex equipment within the underground volume.

The new school will also open sometime in the early 2030s, as its construction is also tied with the real progress on the substation.

Early this year, Vancouver City Council approved the rezoning application for the long-envisioned Olympic Village Elementary School on the Southeast False Creek waterfront. The four-storey building will have a capacity for 630 students, with construction targeted to begin in Spring 2027 for a completion and opening in September 2029. A subsequent development permit application submitted in March 2026 was approved in June 2026.

2026 concept of the new Lord Roberts Annex Elementary School. (McFarland Marceau Architects/Vancouver School Board)

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