Post Office development includes 800-foot skyscraper with City Target and IKEA

Update: April Fools!

We have known for quite awhile that something big is happening at the old post office site in downtown Vancouver, but we never thought it would be this big or tall. Once complete, the $900-million proposal will be the city’s new tallest building and will cement the expansion of the Central Business District eastwards of the Downtown peninsula.

Not much is currently known about this project, but its elements include retaining a portion of the historic post office building including a potential retainment of its West Georgia facade. The 800-foot building complex on the site will be completely commercial and office. For a change, no residential is planned for the building. It will become the city’s largest office tower, and the largest office tower currently planned in Canada.

In total, the complex will have nearly 1.7-million square of floor space: 700,000 square feet from the renovated post office building and one million square feet from the new 52-storey tower. With offices in the new tower and a City Target and IKEA in its former post office podium building, the city block-sized development will house up to 4,000 jobs when complete.

Just to provide some perspective on the size of this development: it greatly contrasts with the ongoing commercial developments in the city such as the 480,000 square foot Telus Headquarters under construction one block away – the largest current Vancouver office project.

The building will also be largely self-sustaining with solar panels, a recycled waste heat generating system, a recycled water distilling system, and other efficient and environmentally friendly designs. The building is expected to achieve the highest LEED ranking: LEED Platinum.

Google is rumoured to be among the office tower’s major tenants. This will be Google’s fourth Canadian office after its Toronto, Montreal, and Waterloo locations.

More to come…

Written and researched by Kenneth Chan, the Deputy Editor at Vancity Buzz. Follow Kenneth on Twitter at @kjmagine.