Pilot project would see two towers with over 1,136 market rental units go up at Pacific and Hornby streets downtown.
The City of Vancouver is getting into the residential market rental business, big time.
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On Thursday, city hall announced it wants to construct a “pilot project” at Pacific and Hornby streets downtown with two high-rise towers.
The buildings are very tall — 54 and 40 storeys high — and would provide 914,712 sq. ft. of mixed-use and residential development. With construction costs for concrete towers now running at $650 per square foot, it could be a $600-million project.
But the city declined to say how much the towers would cost to build, or what the rents could be for the 1,136 “market rental homes.” It did say there will be a mix of studio and one- to three-bedroom suites.
Mayor Ken Sim announced the city’s new direction at a news conference, surrounded by his fellow ABC Vancouver councillors.
Sim said the city’s ongoing housing shortage “impacts our city, the livability, our economic growth, and our ability to attract the people who make Vancouver the incredible city that it is.”
The ABC majority has instructed the Vancouver Housing Development Office “to think big, identifying potential sites, assessing how many units of housing we could deliver, and building partnerships with First Nations, private developers, not-for-profits, faith-based organizations, and other levels of government.”
The housing office has identified five sites: Pacific and Hornby, Granville and Pacific, Main and Terminal, the 2400 Motel on Kingsway, and a property in Marpole.
The new developments will be full-on market rental, not social or subsidized housing. Units will be aimed at people making $90,000 to $120,000 per year, and profits would go into the city’s revenue stream.
“Too many of our people — young professionals, families and essential workers — are struggling to find a place they can afford to call home in Vancouver,” said Sim. “This project is about more than just housing. It’s a game changer for how we use city-owned land.”
The sites are all city-owned properties in the Property Endowment Fund, which manages 440 properties that were assessed at $6 billion in 2024.
Green councillor Pete Fry was not enthused about the plan.
“While other North American cities are typically leveraging their land for affordable and non-market housing, we seem to be moving in the opposite direction, by playing the market to make money,” he said.
“Ken Sim promised to run the city like a business, and that seems to be kind of the spirit of this pilot.”
Planner and developer Michael Geller has had a lot of experience in government projects. He was the program manager for the development of south False Creek for the Canada Mortgage and Housing Association in the 1970s.
“I think it’s a legitimate thing to question why they’re building market rental housing, when they’re competing with (private) developers who have applications before them to build market rental housing,” said Geller.
He notes there is no shortage of proposals for market rental.
“I think there’s 20,000 market rate rental units being proposed right now by the private sector, along the Broadway corridor and elsewhere,” said Geller.
He thinks the city has several areas where it could focus large-scale developments, “rather than appearing to be competing directly with the private sector.”
“I would rather see the city grow the property endowment fund through the redevelopment of things like the south shore of False Creek, which is currently being planned,” he said. “Or the redevelopment of Champlain Heights, another major city development, or the Fraser Lands, another major development.”
But Sim and ABC seem determined to press ahead with their plan, to help alleviate the housing crunch and add some coin to city coffers.
“One of the things we ran on (was) looking at things differently and being innovative,” Sim said. “And if this happened, you know, 10 or 15 years ago, maybe we’re not standing up here, because the housing affordability and attainability challenge wouldn’t be as pronounced in the City of Vancouver.”