While Tri-City residents have been focused on construction activity in their own community over the last few years, plans are afoot for a massive residential development right on Coquitlam’s doorstep.
When it is completed, the City of Lougheed on the Burnaby side of North Road is expected to boast 23 highrise towers that will house 10,000 units. It will also feature 1.4 million sq. ft. of retail space as well as another million square feet of office space — which is about five times the amount that currently exists in all of Coquitlam, according to the city’s most recent semi-annual economic report.
It is a development that will dramatically change the face of the neighbourhood over the next 15 to 20 years, according to Darren Kwiatkowski, the executive vice-president of development and design at Shape Properties, which owns the 40-acre site.
“There hasn’t been a lot of developable land in the [Lougheed] area over the last decade,” he said. “We think there is pent-up demand.”
A promotional video for the project depicts a grand promenade with street-level shops and restaurants while towers appear across the skyline at the point where the Evergreen Extension joins the rest of the Millennium Line.
While some indoor shopping will be maintained, Kwiatkowski said that over the next 15 years, large portions of the existing mall will be demolished to make way for an outdoor network of streets and plazas. The presentation centre opened for previews this week and there is already interest in the street-level retail the development will offer, he said.
“It will evolve over time,” he said. “We will integrate the new phases with the existing mall.”
MORE TRAFFIC
But with larger developments and more residents come increased pressures on the road system, a concern raised by a number of Tri-City News’ letter writers in recent weeks.
While the City of Lougheed is close to SkyTrain, Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan acknowledges there will be some criticism about the traffic levels associated with the project.
“It is impossible to avoid the criticism because there will be more traffic and all of us know that,” Corrigan told The Tri-City News. “Increased traffic and increased congestion is going to affect livability in these communities.”
But he said some of the pressures on the road system will be mitigated by access to SkyTrain and the fact that employment, shopping and residential units will all be located on one walkable site. He added that most people who live in the new neighbourhood will require no more than one car.
The alternative to high-density developments like what is being proposed at Lougheed is sprawl, Corrigan said, which means more people having to drive longer distances to work and shop.
“When we are growing in a constrained area, there really isn’t an easy way out,” he said. “You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t.”
The fact that the project sits on the municipal boundary doesn’t change Burnaby’s approach, he added. There are numerous mixed-use proposals occurring on city borders, Corrigan said, including large-scale projects on Coquitlam’s side of the Burquitlam area that he said will affect Burnaby residents.
Carl Johannsen, Coquitlam’s manager of community planning, said city staff have been aware of the plans at Lougheed Mall for years, noting the area is a designated town centre in Metro Vancouver’s regional growth strategy.
Planners on both sides of the border are frequently in communication during their neighbourhood planning processes and he noted that Coquitlam’s roads are built to sustain the kinds of traffic that could be generated on the Burnaby side of the boundary.
Despite the fact the Lougheed area encompasses two municipalities, Johannsen said movement between the two communities should be seamless.
“We do keep that in mind,” he said. “When we are planning our side, we are thinking about connections to the neighbourhood regardless if they are going into another jurisdiction.”
OFFICES MOVING
Jobs are a key component of the City of Lougheed.
Shape Properties said the site will include a million square feet of office space, which is about five times the amount that currently exists in all of Coquitlam, according to the city’s most recent semi-annual economic report.
Bringing in the business to fill those commercial spaces will not be easy, Corrigan said, but doing so is necessary in order to create job opportunities for local residents.
“Moving business out of the downtown [Vancouver] core will be very difficult,” he said, later adding that he believes “over the long run, [the offices] will be occupied.”
Kwiatkowski is more optimistic.
As Vancouver’s downtown core becomes increasingly expensive, he said commercial office space in the outlining suburbs will become more highly sought after. Lougheed is particularly attractive to companies, he added, because of its connections to rapid transit.
Kwiatkowski said he believes changing attitudes about living closer to where they work will also help bring employers to the Lougheed area.
“Traffic heading to downtown Vancouver hasn’t increased despite the growth [in the region],” he said. “They credit that to transit components but also the mixed-use concept.”
The new development will also feature a variety of housing options, including purpose-built rental residential buildings.
LONG-TERM PLAN
While the thought of 23 new towers and millions of square feet of commercial and retail space may seem daunting to current residents of the area, Burnaby’s Corrigan noted that the project will be phased in over time.
The first tower of the first four-tower phase is only just beginning to work its way through the municipal planning process and the neighbourhood plan was developed for a 20- to 30-year timeframe, he said.
“People get intimidated by seeing long-range plans and don’t understand that it is not going to happen all tomorrow,” he said. “I think in some ways, the community can overreact to these things because it seems like it is overwhelming.”
The plans are ambitious, Corrigan said, and the process is necessary to create expectations for residents of how their community will develop in the future.
In Coquitlam, Johannsen said the phased nature of the project means the cities will be able to react to issues as they come up over the two-decade course of development.
“It is something that will grow over time,” he said. “It is not going to drop out of the sky all at once.”
gmckenna@tricitynews.com
@gmckennaTC
