Surrey City Centre office project now even bigger for SFU medical school

2024 revised concept for the Centre Block's north parcels redevelopment. (Hariri Pontarini Architects/Adamson Architects/SCDC)

Surrey City Development Corporation (SCDC), the real estate development firm wholly owned by the City of Surrey, has revised its redevelopment plans for the Centre Block site for even more office and institutional space.

Centre Block is the redevelopment of the City-owned north parcels at 10261-10275 City Parkway located immediately west of SkyTrain Surrey Central Station, which is currently occupied by the closed North Surrey Recreation Centre.

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A newly revised proposal to be considered by Surrey City Council now calls for a total floor area of 1.56 million sq ft, including 1.21 million sq ft of office space, 329,000 sq ft of institutional space, and 24,200 sq ft of retail/restaurant space. The floor area ratio (FAR) density of the project is now 10 times the size of the lot, with the main East Tower reaching a height of 754 ft with 45 storeys and the smaller West Tower reaching 344 ft with 17 storeys.

In contrast, the original proposal in 2021 envisioned a slightly smaller project with a total floor area of 1.37 million sq ft, which is about 200,000 sq ft or 14% smaller than the newly revised proposal. This previously included 1.18 million sq ft of office space, 153,000 sq ft of institutional space, and 22,900 sq ft of retail/restaurant space for a FAR density of 7.5. Both towers were slightly shorter, with the East Tower reaching 738 ft with 47 storeys and the West Tower reaching 328 ft with 19 storeys.

centre block sfu surrey 10261-10275 city parkway 2024

Site of the north parcels of Centre Block at 10261-10275 City Parkway, Surrey. (City of Surrey)

2024 revised concept for the Centre Block’s north parcels redevelopment. (Hariri Pontarini Architects/Adamson Architects/SCDC)

2024 revised concept for Surrey’s Centre Block’s north parcels redevelopment, including SFU medical school institutional uses (green), office uses (turquoise), and orange (retail/restaurant). (Hariri Pontarini Architects/Adamson Architects/SCDC)

2024 revised concept for the Centre Block’s north parcels redevelopment. (Hariri Pontarini Architects/Adamson Architects/SCDC)

According to the details of the new application documents submitted to the municipal government, the expanded project scope is largely due to the decision to place Simon Fraser University’s (SFU) new medical school within the West Tower. This is now revealed as the location of BC’s second hub for training new doctors and nurses — after the University of British Columbia’s Faculty of Medicine.

The SFU medical school will occupy the first eight levels of the West Tower — 254,000 sq ft of the 454,000 sq ft of the building’s total floor area.

The revised application also notes the West Tower with SFU’s expansion is now the first phase of the project, while the larger East Tower is the second phase.

In Fall 2023, Joy Johnson, the president and vice-chancellor of SFU, told City Council that the university is targeting to have the new purpose-built permanent space for SFU’s medical school completed by 2028/2029. The provincial government would like SFU to enroll the medical school’s first students by 2026, which would require an initial reliance on temporary spaces.

2024 revised concept for the Centre Block’s north parcels redevelopment. (Hariri Pontarini Architects/Adamson Architects/SCDC)

A total of 1,233 vehicle parking stalls will be provided between both the West Tower and East Tower, including 503 stalls for the West Tower and 703 stalls for the East Tower.

There is no timeline for the larger East Tower, but there will be a temporary plaza with landscaping on its footprint between the West Tower and the SkyTrain station. The existing bus loop will remain until the East Tower is built.

An extension of 102a Avenue will eventually cross through Centre Block, separating the north parcels (West Tower and East Tower) from the south parcels (the existing bus loop and surface vehicle parking lot).

Previous City planning documents suggest there is an expectation that SFU will acquire and redevelop the south parcels for an additional SFU Surrey campus expansion, which are considered the third and fourth phases of the Centre Block redevelopment — beyond the scope of the current application. The off-street bus loop will be relocated to an on-street bus exchange, with bus passenger drop-off areas on the new 102a Avenue extension and bus passenger pick-up areas on Central Avenue.

2024 revised concept for the Centre Block’s north parcels redevelopment. (Hariri Pontarini Architects/Adamson Architects/SCDC)

2024 revised concept for the Centre Block’s north parcels redevelopment, and the future south parcels redevelopment. (Hariri Pontarini Architects/Adamson Architects/SCDC)

If built as planned, the East Tower will become one of Metro Vancouver’s future tallest buildings and the new tallest office building in the region. The combined floor area of the West Tower and East Tower is comparable to the overall floor areas of the four office towers of the Bentall Centre complex and larger than the newly built The Post.

The project’s design firms are Hariri Pontarini Architects, Adamson Associates Architects, and PFS Studio.

SCDC is leading the Centre Block redevelopment on behalf of the municipal government after the entity was restarted by City Council in 2023. It has a mandate to both generate revenue and be a catalyst for Surrey’s economic development and growth. Through SCDC, the City also has plans to build 1,600 homes in four towers up to 50 storeys near SkyTrain Gateway Station.

2024 revised concept for the Centre Block’s north parcels redevelopment. (Hariri Pontarini Architects/Adamson Architects/SCDC)

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