Two towers will soon stand sentry over the Westminster Quay. City council gave the green light to a proposal from Bosa Properties to construct a 28-storey and 23-storey tower at 1000 Quayside Drive.

The site next to the Inn at the Quay is currently a parking lot. The approval for the 519-unit residential project with 10,000 square feet of commercial space came despite opposition at a public hearing Monday night. Most complained about the project’s height or the traffic congestion it will create.

“If you load this city with these massive megalithic properties you won’t be able to live in this city,” said resident Bob McCullough.

The approval also came despite a petition signed by 56 residents living in the Plaza 88 complex across the railway tracks and Columbia Street from the proposed project. The signatures were collected by Arlene Hudlin who, like McCullough, lives at 898 Carnarvon St.

Read more: http://www.newwestnewsleader.com/news/280861482.html

Groundbreaking occurred yesterday for a project that has been in the making for years. Hollyburn Properties officially commenced construction of M2 (Marlborough Tower 2) yesterday, a 14-storey rental apartment building located at the corner of 14th and Chesterfield, directly adjacent City Hall. The project had originally been envisioned back in 2005 as part of a land swap with the City, but was left as a parking lot until now.

Thank you @CityOfNorthVan @DarrellMussatto, breaking ground w/ us on 14th & Chesterfield. Purpose built #rental pic.twitter.com/wLoB8xMuWA

— Hollyburn Properties (@HollyburnPpty) October 29, 2014

The building is expected to be ready for occupancy in Summer 2016 and will contain 130 units starting at $1,100 per month. The suite mix is as follows:

• 10 Townhouses
• 6 Penthouses
• 50 – 2 Bedrooms
• 70 – 1 Bedrooms

More info on the building can be found here: http://www.rentersguide.com/marlborough-tower-2 .

Here is a snapshot of where concrete values are this year based on resales. Taking a look at Year-to-date MLS resales in Vancouver West for buildings built in 2012 or newer, and excluding the downtown peninsula, yields the following:

• 134 sales, averaging $808 per SF
• This market is now firmly entrenched well above $700 per SF in most areas
• The cheapest sale was $584 per SF

Source: MLS

The average for Downtown Vancouver remains higher ($904 per SF YTD); however, this is skewed by higher end luxury sales in building such as Residences at Hotel Georgia and 3 Harbour Green. Ultimately, the scarcity of newer concrete product, even in areas that are percieved to have lots of inventory like Olympic Village, is driving Westside concrete values to match or even exceed Downtown prices.

By ChangingCity

Modern by Amacon has just completed construction on the former Commercial Electronics store location on Burrard Street. A modest (by Downtown standards) 17 storeys in height (due to a viewcone across the site), the final version of the IBI/HB designed tower has 118 units over retail. Like the YMCA ‘Patina’ tower and Shangri La, this tower is in the West End, although rezoned within the Downtown zoning district. It’s been just over two years from the first work on site.

The finished building looks pretty close to the sales pictures, although the shade of blue for the spandrel panels is quite a bit lighter than was implied in some initial renders, and the yellow highlights were coloured green on the initial project model.

…read more

Source:: Changing City