North Vancouver approves new $400 million waterfront neighbourhood with 800 condo units
North Vancouver City Council has approved a new waterfront neighbourhood on Harbourside Drive, bordered to the south of North Shore Auto Mall. The vote on the re-submitted rezoning proposal came down to a 5-2 vote that gave the mixed-use development the green light, go-ahead.
Image: Concert Properties
Image: Concert Properties
The 18-building, 1.16 million square foot Harbourside Waterfront development project will be built by Concert Properties on a 12 acre site consisting of:
- 800 residential units, including 700 for market residential and 100 for affordable rental
- 216,000 square feet of office space
- 55,000 square feet of retail space
- a 100,000 square foot hotel
The buildings will be no more than 27.6 metres in height and proponents have promised a LEED Gold standard certification. It will also fund a new one acre City-owned park, improve the existing greenways, dedicate an additional 2.5 acres for public spaces that will weave between the buildings, enhance the shorelines, and construct waterfront boardwalks and pier extensions to provide access to water.
Altogether, the $400 million project will be similar to the scale of Vancouver’s Olympic Village in Southeast False Creek and the Village emerging around the Richmond Olympic Oval.
However, the project’s location and its allocated density is highly questionable due to its relatively inaccessible location. Road access to the new neighbourhood is limited to only Fell Avenue (4 lanes) and Bewicke Avenue (2 lanes), which intersects with an active ground level rail crossing that will undergo developer-funded safety improvements.
Harbourside Waterfront departs from the region’s typical transit-oriented development of how mixed-use forms of residential and commercial are built adjacent to high capacity public transit infrastructure like SkyTrain. For North Vancouver, it has previously chosen to build density along Lonsdale Avenue, which is served by a high concentration of bus routes and the SeaBus terminal.
As no public transit is planned for the new waterfront neighbourhood, Concert Properties will implement a new ‘frequent’ private bus service to the SeaBus terminal in an effort to ease concerns over car traffic, parking demand and accessibility.
Image: Concert Properties
Image: Concert Properties
Legend: Blue – Office; Yellow – Market Residential; Red – Retail; Purple – Hotel; Orange – Rental Housing
Image: Concert Properties
Image: Concert Properties
Image: Concert Properties
Featured Image: Concert Properties
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