9850 Austin Road and 9858-9898 Gatineau Place next to SkyTrain?s Lougheed Town Centre Station in Burnaby
Kenneth Chan
other
We now have a first glimpse of the proposed architectural design of the new tallest building in Metro Vancouver, as well as its two sister towers.
A new preliminary conceptual artistic rendering provided to Daily Hive by local developer Pinnacle International Development shows an early design of the three-building complex, slated for a 6.2-acre site at 9858-9898 Gatineau Place — immediately northeast of SkyTrain’s Lougheed Town Centre Station.
The developer is currently in the early stages of the City of Burnaby’s rezoning application, and there are few new details at this time.
But based on a previous city staff report on the proposed rezoning, the tallest tower — an 82-storey building — will contain a mix of retail and hotel uses within the lower floors and residential uses within the upper levels. Based on the standard floor-to-ceiling height conventions of each type of use, the height should be at least 800 ft., if not more, making it not only the new tallest building in the region but also one of the tallest buildings in Canada west of the Toronto region.
It would not only be the region’s tallest, eclipsing downtown Vancouver’s towers and other suburban tall tower proposals, but also one of the tallest buildings in Western Canada.
In addition to this super-tall East Tower, Pinnacle’s proposal for the large site also includes two other shorter towers that are still considerably tall for the region’s standards.
The West Tower, reaching 67 storeys, will include retail, office, and residential components, while the South Tower will entail retail and residential uses.
The released artistic rendering also shows the redevelopment’s integration with the new transit plaza serving the SkyTrain station and bus loop, as well as a ribbon-like flyover of elevated pedestrian walkways that seamlessly connect the three buildings and surrounding areas.
“The design is inspired by nature with the three buildings metaphorically representing an ensemble of flowers expressed through appropriate massing and architectural articulation,” reads a letter of intent to the City of Burnaby by George Kallergis, vice-president of development for Pinnacle.
“The ground level for each tower will be animated with retail uses that will activate the public realm and integrate with the transit plaza. The second level will include retail components in each building together with a hotel lobby in the ‘East Tower’ and an office lobby in the ‘West Tower.’”
According to the city staff report providing the first details on the proposal, the redevelopment would “remain consistent” with the recently-approved Lougheed Town Centre Plan and Lougheed Core Area Master Plan.
The combined residential uses of all three towers would create a floor area ratio (FAR) residential density of 13.25 times the size of the lot, with 11.91 FAR coming from market condominiums and 2.16 FAR from market rental and affordable rental homes. In real quantities, the market condominium portion alone would create 1.9 million sq. ft. of floor area.
Under the city’s newly approved rental housing policies this year for new multi-family developments, there must be a top up of at least 20% in density dedicated for rental housing uses.
These numbers do not include 430,000 sq. ft. of commercial uses — retail, hotel, and office.
The Lougheed Core Area Master Plan envisions the drastic densification of a 72-acre immediately north of Lougheed Town Centre Station, including Shape Properties’ 37-acre ‘City of Lougheed’ redevelopment of Lougheed Town Centre shopping mall. When the area is fully complete, there will be a transit-oriented development cluster of new retail, office, and residential space, plus new public spaces and amenities.
DH