Construction on Telus’ new Downtown Vancouver headquarters is now progressing above ground. The 22-storey complex is scheduled to be complete in early 2015.

Telus Office Tower Construction

All photos courtesy of Built Form on SSP.

Arts and cultural groups are scrambling to find new venues after being told that a hip evangelical church has bought The Centre for the Performing Arts in downtown Vancouver and plans to take over the 1,800-seat theatre this summer.

Directors of the Vancouver International Film Festival, Goh Ballet and Unique Lives lecture series confirmed they were told last week by the centre’s management that the venue will not be available after the Westside Church takes over ownership in August.

…Diane Heal, the centre’s vice-president of operations, said the centre was for sale but referred all questions to Michael Law of Global Pacific Properties in Denver, Colo., an affiliate of Four Brothers Entertainment, which owns the centre.

Law did not return phone calls or respond to emails from The Vancouver Sun.

According to a March 27 blog on the website of the Westside Church, Pastor Norm Funk said he was “officially” and “publicly” announcing that a purchase sales agreement had been secured with the owners of the centre.

As we reported back in February, Brenhill Development is planning a 36-storey mixed use building at the corner of Richards and Helmcken with 344 market residential strata units (including 5, 2-level townhouses at grade), 110 market rental units and a private school.

In response to comments from the Urban Design Panel, the tower has been redesigned to lower the density slightly from 17.40 FSR to 17.10 FSR, and to reduce the floorplate from 10,300 SF to 10,130 SF. The site is a 15,000 SF site which is being expanded to 21,000 SF through the acquisition of lanes to the west and north.

The property, located at Burrard and Drake, is currently used as the Jim Pattison Downtown Toyota Dealership, with two small old house structures (non-heritage) and two small commercial buildings, one of which is currently housing a Scion Dealership. It was also reported in BIV this week that Reliance has secured the 7-11 site at the corner of Hornby and Davie, where it is expected a tower in the range of 28 storeys will become the 4th tower in the project.

The current plan calls for the following:

• along Hornby Street, a 54-storey tower and a 36-storey tower, with a 7-storey podium, providing retail, office and residential uses, including rental housing;
• along Burrard Street, a 14-storey office tower, including a 3-storey automotive dealership
• an increase in the total number of residential dwelling units, from 619 units to 810 units;
• a proposed density of 13.3 FSR (up from 11.8 in the previous proposal)
• a maximum height of 525.7 ft.

Retail and real estate analysts believe large retailers such as Walmart or Target could start pushing for construction of a new mall on either of two downtown blocks that are ripe for redevelopment.

Canada Post’s sale in January of its long-time Vancouver headquarters to BC Investment Management Corp. (BCIMC) has opened up the block bounded by Georgia, Homer, Dunsmuir and Hamilton streets.

Two blocks east is Larwill Park, which is owned by the City of Vancouver and bounded by Georgia, Cambie, Dunsmuir and Beatty streets.

The Vancouver Art Gallery (VAG) is hoping to convince the city at a meeting, likely to be held in early March, that it should be given the site – which some estimate to be worth $200 million – to build a new $300 million gallery.