Quote:
Originally Posted by Spr0ckets
That's just an unrealistic expectation given the current market - that any developer is going to include that much office space in a development of this size.
Even the City staff that said that has to know this.
And not just in Surrey, but anywhere else in the metro region that's not Downtown Vancouver (....and even there, not likely so).
It would have made sense to require something like Hotel, which is a better bet for feasibility in the current market, but there again without an established Hotelier partner to run the hotel component (and have their brand name on it), you're risking a poor ROI.
I might agree with the parking in the podium, but I imagine the reason they're going that route is to tamp down construction costs from having to excavate and construct several levels of underground parkade, and also taking advantage of the elimination of parking minimums thanks to TOA legislation given their proximity to Transit - to reduce their parking stalls count..
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Needs something besides purely residential and a single floor of retail. At least if you're going to have an above ground parkade to keep costs low, wrap the outside with flexible space that could be used for restaurants or other entertainment uses.
This is directly between Surrey Central Station and their new "entertainment district" to be. Making this block a multi-storey wall of entertainment would be an actual forward thinking move for the city and would count towards the non-residential uses required for the site.
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