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Vancouver’s Thurlow Street set to see clusters of new high-rises

Since changes in strata legislation that means winding up a condo building no longer requires a 100 per cent vote from owners, the City of Vancouver has seen a flurry of redevelopment applications.
Joannah Connolly
1075 Barclay street and Scheeren towers
This rendering from the Büro Ole Scheeren-designed dual-tower proposal shows the building at 1075 Barclay Street in the foreground. The site is now likely to be redeveloped into another high-rise, adding to the cluster of new towers in the area. Image via City of Vancouver planning

Since changes in strata legislation that means winding up a condo building no longer requires a 100 per cent vote from owners, the City of Vancouver has seen a flurry of redevelopment applications.

One of the areas seeing the biggest skyline change is the downtown edge of the West End, where major arterial route Thurlow Street is poised to get two new clusters of high-rise residential buildings.

The West End Official Community Plan’s design for high density along arterial streets took another step forward this week when a judge ruled that the contested wind-up of a 1992-built condo building at 1075 Barclay Street could go ahead, according to a March 15 Vancouver Sun report. As the wind-up of a building now only requires an 80 per cent vote, and 34 of the 36 units had already been purchased by a company with the intent to sell for redevelopment, the building’s two remaining hold-out owners were overruled.

Even before the court ruling, Colliers Canada had been advertising the site, combined with the adjacent lot, as a prime high-rise development opportunity. Under the West End OCP, the site is already zoned for up to a 550-foot-high residential tower (approximately 55 storeys).

The building to be wound up and redeveloped is directly opposite the proposed Büro Ole Scheeren-designed dual towers, which Bosa and Kingswood have applied to the City of Vancouver to develop, rising up to 49 storeys. Those towers are in the same city block as the upcoming 57-storey Butterfly tower by Westbank, which was approved by the City, despite strong objections from local residents, especially those in the neighbouring Patina tower who are concerned about southerly light and views.

1075 Barclay street and cluster of high-rises
The renderings for the proposed Bosa/Kingswood towers shows how a cluster of high-rises will form around the existing Patina building (to the left of the dual towers, with the glass top section). The image includes an unknown building behind the Bosa towers, and the Butterfly building behind Patina, but not any future development at 1075 Barclay (circled). Image via City of Vancouver planning

The residents of Patina, which is currently the tallest building in the block, will face similar changes to their western and north-western outlooks if the dual Scheeren towers are approved and 1075 Barclay also gets a high-rise development.

Another cluster of four high-rises between 30 and 33 storeys is also proposed for further south along Thurlow Street, between Burnaby and Harwood. Two of them are proposed by Bosa under its BlueSky Properties brand, and two are proposed by Intracorp and Strand Developments.