Developers plan to spend more than $500 million to transform a triangular slice of eastern Port Coquitlam - formerly farmland - into Metro Vancouver's newest planned community, by blending homes, retail and industrial projects.
The area is now primarily grassland with about 350,000 square feet of retail but, by 2018, Fremont, as the area is known, is expected to be home to up to 4,000 people while also having nearly double the retail square footage and about 300,000 square feet of industrial space.
Mosaic Homes is building the first 48 of its planned 650 homes that will be across from a park that borders the river. Sales are scheduled to begin in May for the homes earmarked for occupancy this summer.
"We'll be initiating construction of additional homes within a couple months so that by the end of the year we will have either completed or started construction on 150 of the planned 650 homes," Mosaic's spokesman Geoff Duyker said of his company's $180 million investment.
All of Mosaic's homes will be in multi-family buildings and include about 200 apartments and 450 townhomes that range in price up to $500,000.
Onni Group is in the permitting stage of its plans to build up to 650 units in two residential towers at its Fremont Village retail complex.
The 350,000-square-foot shopping complex now has big-box tenants such as Canadian Tire and Walmart. John Middleton, Onni vice-president of leasing, said recent tenants include Shoppers' Drug Mart, RBC, CIBC, A&W and Burger King.
Onni plans to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to develop that space.
Conwest Group of Companies is scheduled to complete a 50,000-square-foot industrial building with six strata units in May. It will then start work on a 22,000-square-foot industrial building with five strata units.
Conwest principal Tony Marinelli said construction on the project will be completed by year's end.
Conwest plans to develop a further 228,000 square feet of industrial strata space on its 26-acre parcel within the next two years.
