The Seylynn Village project website has been launched: www.seylynn.ca . The 720 unit, 3-tower project is being built by Denna Homes and marketed by Pacesetter Marketing. It appears that each tower will comprise a separate phase.

Developing Story: Musqueam showcase preferred option for development on endowment lands.

The preferred option for the Musqueam Indian Band’s development of a 22-acre site on University Endowment Lands was presented at an open house last night.

The band plans to develop a site known as Block F between University Boulevard and Acadia Road, land which was returned by the provincial government under a 2008 reconciliation agreement. The open house is part of the pre-application process.

The preferred option envisions a commercial village of 30,000 square feet, a four-storey 120-room hotel, residential buildings, including three-storey town homes, four-to-six storey buildings, and four towers between 18 to 22 storeys, as well as open spaces in the form of trails, parks and village greens, according to Gordon Easton, project manager at Colliers International.

Easton added it allows for the mature stand of trees to remain with the wetlands in the centre of the site.

“That’s something we heard quite strongly from the community and the Pacific Spirit Park Society — that that was something they’d really like to see and also respecting the current trail network connections that exist on the site,” he said.

Thursday marks the third open house for the project — about 300 attended the first open house in early December and another 170 attended the second one in early February. Almost 1,300 views have been recorded to date for the Block F topic on PlaceSpeak, an online community consultation site.

Upper floors of East Hastings site empty for decades.

An iconic set of adjoining buildings on the East Hastings strip most recently home to a pawn shop is expected to undergo a major renovation that will include adding 19 rental apartments and a retail business.

The addition of housing is significant since nobody has lived in the upper floors of the former B.C. Collateral and Loans buildings at 71-77 East Hastings St. for more than 40 years.

The pawn shop on the main floor has been closed for several years and the large neon “loans” sign once mounted on the west building’s façade is gone.

Located near Columbia Street, the C-listed heritage buildings are smack dab in the middle of a neighbourhood desperate for low-income housing and engaged in a mounting debate over gentrification.

But property owner Steven Lippman of No. 380 Cathedral Ventures Ltd., which owns the York Rooms and other single-room-occupancy hotels in the neighbourhood, said his project couldn’t be considered gentrification. “We rehabilitate, we re-energize, we reinvigorate, we re-use, we recycle,” Lippman told the Courier. “It’s an old junky building and we want to fix it up and put people who are low-income back in there. That’s what we do.”