Later this week, the City of Vancouver council will consider a report recommending a revised rezoning application for the 28 acre Oakridge Centre site, being jointly developed by Westbank Projects and Ivanhoe Cambridge.

The project was originally introduced back in 2012, and was approved for rezoning over two years ago, to include 11 residential towers and over 4.6 Million SF of total building area including commercial. As was reported in the summer of 2015, the project faced a number of challenges since the rezoning approval, including:

• technical complications of constructing lower parking levels due to an aquifer
• accommodating continuous operation of the shopping mall during construction
• the need to maintain The Bay store in its current location due to lease requirements

The new rezoning proposal is summarized as “shedding 20% of the total density and delivering all of the public benefits from the previous application”. The letter of inquiry from Ivanhoe and Westbank outlines the following proposed changes to the project under a revised application:

• an overall reduction in the amount of new residential and commercial
  density (approx. 20%)
  
• larger park area at-grade
• maintaining the mall at one level with new mall space to be added at grade,
• keeping The Bay store in its current location,
• reconfiguration of the underground parking to avoid the existing aquifer,
• a Civic Centre and park at grade with further rooftop park and open space,
• comparable community amenities including affordable housing, and
•  building heights similar to the 2014 rezoning, but two fewer towers
• project construction in 6 years instead of 8 years
  

The new rezoning application will require a new negotiation on public benefits, and will require a full rezoning process with new public consultation. The total cost of the new application is $1.5M, which will be covered by the proponent.

By Evan Duggan

There’s a familiar sports cliché Daniel Fournier likes to use when describing his vision for Ivanhoe Cambridge in his role as the massive commercial real estate investment firm’s chairman and CEO.

“Go big or go home,” Fournier says more than once during Wednesday’s interview in a seventh-floor suite of the 75-year-old Fairmont Hotel Vancouver — a masterpiece Ivanhoe Cambridge is currently shopping as part of an ongoing shift toward tightening its grasp on high-profile shopping centres and office tower buildings.

Fournier would repeat the phrase again downstairs in a keynote address to the Vancouver Board of Trade. He comes by the sports lingo honestly. Fournier, who took over the multi-billion dollar reins of Ivanhoe Cambridge in 2010, took a break from his studies at Oxford in 1977 to play a season for the CFL’s Ottawa Rough Riders.

Fournier said he came to the West Coast partly to say “thank you to Vancouver, because we’ve done very, very well here,” but also to share insight on how he plans to transform Ivanhoe Cambridge from a real estate investment machine with $40 billion in assets, into a $70-billion behemoth.

Ivanhoe Cambridge, the real estate arm of  …read more

Source:: RENX

A revised rezoning application has been presented for Westbank and Ivanhoe Cambridge’s plan to rezone and redevelop the 28-acre Oakridge Centre property. This is expected to be the last round of formal open houses for the rezoning before the proposal heads to the Urban Design Panel and then on to Public Hearing.

Proposed changes from 2012 version:

Oakridge Height Changes

Guildford Town Centre’s $280-million renovation driven by bid for young shoppers.

METRO VANCOUVER — The kids have wallets, and they don’t want to wait. As Surrey’s Guildford Town Centre unveils a $280-million expansion this week — with 70 new stores and a 1,034-seat food court — general manager Peggy White says that online shopping does not pose a real threat to modern shopping centres like hers.

When fashion-conscious 15- to 25-year olds go shopping, “they want to take (their purchase) home and wear it that night. Sometimes they wear it right out of the store,” White said.

Guildford owner/developer Ivanhoe Cambridge has assembled a sparkling new mix of stores — including Forever 21 (at 23,000 square feet), H&M (25,000 square feet), Victoria’s Secret, Sephora, Aritzia, The Lego Store and Disney Store — to woo young shoppers back from the glitter of downtown Vancouver’s Robson Street and Burnaby’s Metrotown.

The expansion increases retail space to 1.2 million square feet from 980,000, and includes a facelift for the existing mall, with waterfalls, soft seating, a much larger food court, and a giant 10,000-plant living wall that covers a connector straddling 104th Ave.