Wyndham hotel eyed for 18-storey mass-timber tower near Granville Island | Daily Hive

May 2025 concept of the hotel tower at 1500-1588 West 3rd Ave., Vancouver. (Arno Matis Architecture)

If built, a new major hotel at the southern end of the Granville Street Bridge in Vancouver will be a property under the chain of Wyndham Hotels & Resorts.

More specifically, it will be a boutique hotel operated under the “WaterWalk by Wyndham” brand, which offers both short-term and extended-stay accommodations. The brand enhances the experience for long-term guests by providing larger suites and additional in-suite amenities, including kitchenettes in all suites, to ensure greater comfort during extended stays.

These are the new project details and conceptual artistic renderings provided in the newly submitted rezoning application by Arno Matis Architecture to redevelop 1500-1588 West 3rd Ave. into a 162-ft-tall, 18-storey hotel tower.

As previously reported by Daily Hive Urbanized, the site is situated near the southeast corner of the intersection of Fir Street and West 3rd Avenue — next to the Anderson Street entrance into Granville Island — and immediately adjacent to the bridge’s southbound off-ramp onto West 4th Avenue.

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With a lot street frontage width of just 50 ft, this will be a narrow building. The project site is notable for being on one of the “excess land” parcels of the City of Vancouver’s acquisition of Canadian Pacific’s Arbutus railway corridor. Seven years ago, the municipal government declared the former railway parcels north of West 5th Ave. were not needed for its envisioned Arbutus Greenway route and the potential future streetcar line. The City later exercised the option to make these vacant railway parcels — currently mainly used as parking lots — available for new building development.

1500-1588 west 3rd avenue vancouver granville island hotel

May 2025 concept of the hotel tower at 1500-1588 West 3rd Ave., Vancouver. (Arno Matis Architecture)

Another unique component is the project’s hybrid mass-timber design — a first for a hotel project in Vancouver.

Not only does mass-timber construction provide environmental benefits, compared to conventional concrete and steel structures, but the ability for lightweight pre-fabrication also reduces construction costs and timelines. Such a building reaching a height of 18 storeys is also made possible by recent building code changes of both the provincial government and the City of Vancouver.

“Exposed mass timber construction would be ideally suited for a boutique hotel project and very much in tune with the timber vibe of the adjacent Granville Island shopping district,” states Fast + Epp, which is a firm with experience in designing mass-timber structures.

May 2025 concept of the hotel tower at 1500-1588 West 3rd Ave., Vancouver. (Arno Matis Architecture)

The building’s ground floor will be largely dedicated to a 5,300 sq. ft. hotel lobby and lounge, and there will be a total of 160 hotel rooms.

On the tower rooftop, there will be extensive guest amenities, including a fitness gym, business centre/lounge, and a north-facing outdoor rooftop patio with seating, landscaping, and expansive views of False Creek, the downtown Vancouver skyline, English Bay, and the North Shore mountains.

The tower’s facade will have solid spandrel and glass cladding, with an organic pattern that “celebrates the rain city.”

Four underground levels will provide 19 vehicle parking stalls. Overall, the project’s total building floor area will reach about 98,400 sq. ft., establishing a floor area ratio density of a floor area that is 16.4 times larger than the size of the 6,000 sq. ft. lot. The site falls within the Broadway Plan area, and is not impacted by the City’s protected mountain view cone policies.

Upon opening, this Wyndham hotel will create about 160 jobs. The project will help narrow Metro Vancouver’s growing hotel shortage, with Destination Vancouver estimating there is a need for 20,000 additional hotel rooms across the region over the coming decades, including 10,000 within the city of Vancouver where the demand is highest. Without a meaningful increase in net hotel room supply, Vancouver will continue to face escalating nightly room rates, and the room shortage will become acute starting in 2026.

Existing condition:

Site of 1580 West 3rd Avenue, Vancouver. (Google Maps)

Future condition:

May 2025 concept of the hotel tower at 1500-1588 West 3rd Ave., Vancouver. (Arno Matis Architecture)

According to the proponents, this area in particular is grossly under-served by hotels, given its very close proximity to Granville Island and the area’s general popularity with tourists.

Currently, the only hotel in the area is the 82-room Granville Island Hotel on the easternmost end of Granville Island. As well, there are only two hotels near the Vancouver General Hospital campus, including Granville Island Hotel and Holiday Inn Vancouver Centre, with the former Park Inn & Suites undergoing a complete redevelopment into Hilton’s Tapestry and Homewood Suites properties. Both the new Hilton and a future Marriott-branded hotel are located adjacent to SkyTrain’s future Oak-VGH Station.

The Wyndham hotel will also benefit from the Millennium Line’s Broadway Extension, with the site located about a 10-minute walk from the future South Granville Station, in addition to its close proximity to Granville Street Bridge bus routes to downtown Vancouver. Accessibility will be further enhanced by the site’s close proximity to the entrance of the new Granville Connector — the wide protected walking and cycling pathways on the Granville Bridge, as another way to reach downtown.

Site of the hotel tower at 1500-1588 West 3rd Ave., Vancouver. (Arno Matis Architecture)

The area is also poised to become more attractive as the Broadway Plan spurs new developments, transforming the remaining industrial and service-based commercial uses. This transformation will be complemented by nearby projects such as the Senakw rental housing towers and the future redevelopment of the former Molson Coors brewery. Some massing visuals included in this rezoning application also show the area’s evolution from the new hotel tower, Senakw, and select projects in the Broadway Plan.

Over the long term, the site could eventually sit along a potential streetcar line running on the Arbutus Greenway and the False Creek South railway right-of-way.

In the meantime, as a nod to the property’s railway past, the project proposes to retain the existing overhead railway crossing signal immediately next to the development site on West 3rd Avenue. This overhead signal that used to stop vehicle traffic will be reimagined as a public art piece symbolizing the gateway into the “Armoury District” in the Burrard Slopes area.

Railway signal turned into public art; May 2025 concept of the hotel tower at 1500-1588 West 3rd Ave., Vancouver. (Arno Matis Architecture)

Future condition of the area with the hotel at 1500-1588 West 3rd Ave. and the Senakw towers. (Arno Matis Architecture)

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