Downtown Vancouver is on the rise – The Columbian

The citys permitting process has four main stages: pre-application, land use review, building permit review and then, once the permit has been issued, construction. There are currently four projects in the pre-application phase, totaling 484 units, plus three in the land use stage with a total of 507 units.

Four more projects are in building review, with a combined 457 units, and 11 projects are actively under construction or have permits issued. Thats 2,339 units in the pipeline for the next couple of years on top of 949 units that have already been built downtown since the adoption of the 2007 plan, Eiken said, in total representing about 75 percent of the target for 2027.

Commercial development is also showing signs of increased growth, Eiken noted. The city has only added a few major office buildings since the recession, he said the Hudson Building, Hurley Tower and the Murdock building at the Waterfront but several projects currently in the pipeline will probably double or triple the amount of new office space added in the post-recession era.

The city doesnt have a hard target for office development like it does for residential, Eiken said, but it all serves the same goal.

A lot of it is more in the intangible area of adding vitality to the downtown, he said. By bringing more residents to the downtown as well as workers, theres more support for the local businesses, and as we know, the more rooftops we get in the downtown, the more likely it is that well get a grocery store, so its really important that we get income levels up but also the number of units in the downtown.

Continued here:
Downtown Vancouver is on the rise - The Columbian