Burnaby company wants to develop one of the last remaining strips of riverfront
Fiona Anderson
Sun
An artist’s rendering shows the proposed Fraser Mills development in Coquitlam, as viewed from the Fraser River.
A Burnaby-based company known for its industrial developments wants to turn one of the last strips of river front in Coquitlam into a self-contained village of 3,700 residences, a variety of stores and restaurants, a community centre and a public pier.
The Beedie Group has asked the City of Coquitlam to allow it to turn an 82.4-acre-parcel along the Fraser River into “the Village at Fraser Mills,” a multi-use development including townhouses, apartment buildings up to 22 storeys high, 190,000 square feet of restaurants and shops and 100,000 square feet of offices. Also included are 7,500 square feet of community space, including an open-air theatre and a community centre.
The proposed village site, where King Edward Street meets the Fraser River, is the former site of Interfor’s Fraser Mills sawmill, which the Beedie Group bought for $12.75 million last December.
President Ryan Beedie said that the easy route would have been to develop the land as “just another industrial park.” But after walking through the site, he thought that Coquitlam residents should be given a chance to have access to the water.
“What I found frustrating is that you’ve got this beautiful waterfront and our clients in many cases have the backs of their warehouses facing the river and the offices face the street,” Beedie said in an interview. “Here’s waterfront and there’s such a limited supply of it and there’s some loading doors facing it,” Beedie said.
“It seems like such a waste.”
So he approached the city to see if they would consider allowing a multi-use development instead. And the city was receptive, Beedie said. On Monday, city council asked the group to hold an open-house and carry out public consultations to determine how Coquitlam residents felt about the project.
“This is a unique opportunity to create a phenomenal community for people to live in for decades to come,” Beedie said. “There is a unique opportunity for all of Coquitlam to benefit from this development.”
The development is still in a preliminary stage, Beedie Group development manager Dave Gormley said. After the initial public consultation to be held June 28, the group will meet one-on-one with different community groups. After that, if the city is still willing to consider making the necessary changes to its official community plan, Beedie Group representatives will meet with various government officials. If all goes well, development could start next summer.
Hotson Bakker Boniface Haden are the architects behind the design of the Village of Fraser Mills. They have been involved in a number of high-profile developments, including Granville Island, Lonsdale Quay in North Vancouver and southeast False Creek.
Konni Bernaschek, president of the Coquitlam Heritage Society, one of the groups that will take part in the consultation process, thinks the proposal is an excellent idea, especially since the plan includes a museum to commemorate the Fraser Mills sawmill.
“That sawmill was really the seed that started Maillardville that later on became Coquitlam,” Bernaschek said in an interview. “It was at one time the largest sawmill in the British Empire and it attracted a lot of qualified workers and started our community.”
The Heritage Society has several artifacts and over 700 photographs of the old sawmill that it would be happy to house in the new museum.
The main concern being raised by some councillors, according to Coquitlam Now, is that the project would remove light-industrial land from the tax base.
© The Vancouver Sun 2005