Westbank has submitted their rezoning application for 720 Beatty Street, the Central Heat site located at the Southeast corner of West Georgia Street and Beatty Street in Downtown Vancouver. The site sits adjacent BC Place. The site was acquired as part of the Creative Energy purchase and rebranding five years ago. The Beatty Street site, which totals 51,820 SF, has been deemed surplus and suitable for commercial redevelopment.

The proposal is for a unique 17-storey office tower that includes:

• 515,150 SF of office space;
  • 35,000 SF average tower floorplates;
• 18,503 SF of retail space;
• a total building height of 263.8 ft;
• a total density of 11.55 FSR;
• a 5-storey retail and entertainment pavilion fronting Georgia Street;
• an upgrade to the creative energy plant;
• 4 levels of underground parking; 358 parking spaces and 
  325 bicycle spaces.

The application describes part of the rezoning rationale as follows: “This rezoning proposal seeks to repurpose these industrial lands and increase the existing allowable commercial density rights from 7 FSR (under the CBD policies) with 597,192 sq ft of office, retail and Creative Energy plant space on 720 Beatty Street. As one of the largest and only undeveloped areas in the downtown peninsula, we have an extremely rare opportunity here to not only significantly upgrade an aging steam plant, but also create an architectural landmark capable of housing large office floorplates that will draw creative economy tenants into Vancouver. This will allow our city to attract both talent and employers that would otherwise find the standard Vancouver size office floorplates and workspace offerings inadequate for their needs.”

This application is being considered under the Rezoning Policy for the Central Business District (CBD) and CBD Shoulder.

The architects for the project are Bjarke Ingles and HMCA Architecture + Design.

The full rezoning application can be viewed here: https://rezoning.vancouver.ca/applications/720beatty2/index.htm