Former White Spot Location To Be Redeveloped
An early massing scheme for Chard Development’s and BC Housing’s joint effort on the site of White Spot Restaurant’s and City Centre Hotel’s former properties between the 700-blocks of Caledonia Avenue and Discovery Street at Douglas Street, looking southwest from above Blanshard Street. Three residential towers will deliver approximately 500-units of housing. © Chard Development / BC Housing
Sponsored by:
COLWOOD
The mixed-use Colwood Corners development at the nexus of Sooke Road and Old Island Highway at Goldstream Avenue welcomed residents to its first residential buildings late last year, and by mid-2022 new retail tenants will begin opening for business throughout its eight initial buildings.
Grocery chain Save-On-Foods will anchor Colwood Corners with a nearly 40,000 square foot space in the ground floor level of a two-building complex comprised of 128 rental suites. London Drugs, meanwhile, will remain at its present location within the retail centre, and Coast Capital Savings will move to a new-built space fronting Sooke Road.
Seven additional tenants have formally leased units within the retail centre, four spaces have deals pending, while eight storefronts remain available (including one that can be subdivided from its 17,524 square foot size, if necessary), bringing the lease-up total to 60 per cent.
SAANICH
A condominium pre-sale has launched its second home release following a highly successful market debut last fall.
Victoria-based Abstract Developments plans to unveil a collection of one, two and two-bedroom plus den residences this Saturday for Cadence, the builder’s latest homeownership opportunity coming soon to Quadra Street at Palmer Road, as demand for urban high density homes spools up for the new year. Cadence will rise to six-storeys.
SIDNEY
What could become the town of Sidney’s largest residential development in recent decades has been proposed overlooking the intersection of Beacon Avenue and the Pat Bay Highway.
Ontario-based Kothari Group is pursuing approvals for nearly 150 apartment units within a five-storey complex at 2180 Beacon Avenue West at the northwest corner of the thoroughfare’s Highway 17 crossing.
VICTORIA
The developer of a newly approved landmark downtown office building has submitted a rezoning application to the City that incorporates a non-registered heritage building into a mixed-use rental project.
The Abbey apartments at 1702 Quadra Street and 862 Fisgard Street – a two-storey commercial-turned-residential block dating back to 1911 – is the foundation of a new proposal from Aryze Developments which has designed a vision that would see the building assume the lower levels of a 10-storey, 91-unit rental mid-rise with ground floor commercial and residential spaces.
Aryze’s concept calls for a concrete tower standing eight levels above The Abbey with exposed concrete columns, overhangs and terraces. The building’s expansive windows, reaching near floor-to-ceiling heights and encased in decorative square-shaped concrete frames, present a unique design element to Victoria’s built form while complementing the immediate area’s post-modern residential towers.
Chard Development and BC Housing have submitted an application seeking approvals for the redevelopment of White Spot Restaurant’s former location on Douglas Street at Caledonia Avenue, and the adjacent City Center Hotel complex on Douglas Street at Discovery Street.
Plans call for three distinct residential buildings offering a mix of workforce (below-market) rental apartments, market rental residences and condominiums. Approximately 500 suites will be situated within buildings at heights ranging from 16 to 21-storeys, while a separate property currently occupied by surface parking and situated on the north side of Discovery Street will accommodate an approximately 90-unit supportive housing facility that will replace temporary housing units currently contained within the City Center Hotel.
Vancouver-based Reliance Properties, which recently announced a $1.2 billion partnership agreement to build Colwood’s Royal Beach community alongside Seacliff Properties, is pursuing plans for a highrise mixed-use tower in downtown Victoria’s south end.
Envisioned for 780 Blanshard Street between Fairfield Road and Burdett Avenue is a hotel and residential project that could reach as high as 21-storeys, plus an amenity space as part of a 22nd floor.
Reliance has pitched the idea to the Victoria Downtown Residents Association citing hotel uses for a refurbished art deco-styled office complex (known formally as the BC Power Commission Building) and residential suites within a tower above.
Demand for condominium housing has been on a tear in downtown Victoria throughout the last six months, with winter of 2022 seeing demand for pre-sale residences escalate to levels not seen since before the pandemic.
Among the homeownership offerings currently on the market, Chard Development’s 12-storey Nest condominium tower, and its BC Housing-backed six-storey sibling Haven, have risen to the top of the sales charts with over 80 per cent of Nest’s 107 residences now sold, and over half of Haven’s 104 attainable ownership suites pre-purchased by Victorians taking advantage of BC Housing’s down payment deposit-match program. Construction on the two-building project is underway.
Mike Kozakowski is with Citified Media and can be reached at mailto:mike@citifiedmedia.com
