TransLink considering former North Vancouver bus depot redevelopment

2014 condition before closure; TransLink's North Vancouver Transit Centre bus depot at 502 East 3rd Street in North Vancouver City. (Google Maps)

More than a decade after TransLink arrived at its plan to decommission North Vancouver Transit Centre, it is now considering a possible redevelopment of the under-utilized property.

The former bus depot at 502 East 3rd Street in North Vancouver City closed in 2016, when its bus operations and maintenance services for the North Shore were relocated to Burnaby Transit Centre just west of the Brentwood area.

TransLink is now in the process of seeking a contractor — a multi-disciplinary team — to create a design for the former bus depot’s potential redevelopment.

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TransLink spokesperson Dan Mountain told Daily Hive Urbanized no decision has been made on the project design, uses, and timelines, but he says it will be part of the public transit authority’s new for-profit Real Estate Development Program, which has a stated mandate to pursue residential, commercial, and industrial projects, and especially transit-oriented developments.

The potential North Vancouver Transit Centre redevelopment represents the third publicly known project under the Real Estate Development Program. Earlier this year, TransLink submitted a rezoning application to the City of Vancouver to pursue a 30-storey, mixed-use, rental housing tower adjacent to SkyTrains’ future Arbutus Station — the first project under the program. TransLink is also in the process of planning a massive redevelopment proposal for its 9.3-acre park-and-ride facility and bus loop serving Coquitlam Central Station.

The former North Vancouver Transit Centre site is directly served by bus stops for the R2 Marine Drive RapidBus service, which will be upgraded to a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) service within the decade.

The site spans a full city block length between St. Davids Avenue and Ridgeway Avenue, and its lot size is 2.2 acres.

502 East 3rd Street North Vancouver Transit Centre TransLink

Site of TransLink’s former North Vancouver Transit Centre bus depot at 502 East 3rd Street in North Vancouver City. (Google Maps)

Site of TransLink’s former North Vancouver Transit Centre bus depot at 502 East 3rd Street in North Vancouver City. (BC Assessment)

According to BC Assessment, the assessed value of the property has soared from $4.7 million in July 2013 to $22.2 million in July 2022. The bus depot first opened in 1949.

In more recent years since the bus depot’s closure, some adjacent properties have been redeveloped into mixed-use buildings with primarily residential uses and heights of up to four storeys, in accordance to City of North Vancouver regulations.

Since 2016, all of TransLink’s buses serving the North Shore have been operated, maintained, and stored from Burnaby Transit Centre, with buses beginning and ending their service each day on the south side of Burrard Inlet via the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge.

At the time of the closure decision more than a decade ago, TransLink was avoiding the high costs of upgrading the existing facility or building a suitable replacement bus depot facility on the North Shore.

2014 condition before closure; TransLink’s North Vancouver Transit Centre bus depot at 502 East 3rd Street in North Vancouver City. (Google Maps)

2022 condition; site of TransLink’s former North Vancouver Transit Centre bus depot at 502 East 3rd Street in North Vancouver City. (Google Maps)

The former North Vancouver Transit Centre should not be confused for the existing West Vancouver Municipal Transit Centre, which is the separately operated bus depot for the Blue Bus fleet, located at 221 Lloyd Avenue in North Vancouver District. This 3.3-acre facility is the home base for about 50 buses owned and operated by the District of West Vancouver.

But TransLink is now indicating it cannot defer the major investment on a permanent long-term solution for the North Shore’s bus depot needs any longer.

During last month’s Mayors’ Council meeting, TransLink staff said the bus depot capacity needs across Metro Vancouver will increase by nearly 90% or over 2,000 more spaces by 2035. These new additional storage and maintenance facilities are necessary to accommodate plans for major bus service expansion and the gradual transition to a battery-electric bus fleet.

By 2035, the North Shore needs additional bus depot capacity for 250 buses. The preliminary options are to expand West Vancouver Transit Centre by 250 buses, replace West Vancouver Transit Centre with a new North Shore depot with a capacity of about 325 buses, or pursue a combination of both options.

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