Surrey Updates

[osirisboy]

Originally Posted by Blease

How difficult could it be when twenty or so projects have either started or completed in the last five years within one square-kilometre of Surrey City Centre.

No sorry. I didn't mean there were no projects that get developed. I'm saying in relation to other cities in Vancouver it seems to take longer here. like park place, It's only taken 10 years to get it topped off. How bout across the street, 12 years and concord still hasn't fully completed it. How bout wave? didn't even bother trying to market the second tower still. But I was thinking more of the smaller infill sites. In south Surrey there are a bunch that are just sitting cleared and fenced off and it's been a decade and nothing has happened. The Bosa site on Johnson (technically in white rock) still not developed with the developer saying in 2014 that they didn't want to proceed due to market conditions! So when I hear and see things like that I just think wtf,

I'm not trying to shit on the success Surrey is having with the city centre renewal. I'm just pointing out how odd it is seeing these vacant lots sit empty when I'm always hearing how Surrey is the fastest growing city etc

[Shift]

^This is a good point.

The booming areas of Surrey in the past 5 years have been in the south (Grandview Heights, Sunnyside Heights), South Newton, and Clayton near Cloverdale. The market is buying up Single Family housing and townhouses as that is the draw of the South Fraser region.

Condos in Surrey Centre have likely been a harder sell, but it seems like that may be changing. There were really only 1-2 towers added between 2011-2016 (Ultra and Wave?). Between 2016-2021 that number will quadruple or more. There's already 4 under construction and 2 that just finished, and we're barely into the next 5 years.

Now that the ball is rolling and the area's image improves, condos will likely become more appealing to the market and develop quicker than in the past. Houses and townhouses will still make up the majority of growth, but I predict City Centre growth is going to spike in the next 5 years and take up a bigger proportion.

[Shift]

Early look at the Anthem Properties site and how they plan to break it up. No renders or any more details so far.

There are a total of 7 different sites, with 7 towers, although the towers are hard to see in this.

Site 1 is at the bottom right corner where the A&W currently is. Seems like this will be developed first with a 30 storey tower.


Other noticeable bits:

• A central plaza with a restaurant fronting onto it.
• Site broken up with 4 new streets as per City Centre Plan
• Office use on upper levels facing King George Blvd (Ground entrance in blue), but unclear how many floors.
• Townhouses in orange at the north of the site
• Commercial CRU throughout in pink with residential towers above
• Looks like surface parking on site 1? Similar to Station Square? Hopefully not..
  
  

Full-size:

https://anthemproperties.com/content/site_plans/0244_SitePlan.pdf


Site:




City Centre Plan:

Red is 'Mixed-Use 3.5 FAR'
Purple is 'Mixed-Use 7.5 FAR'

[officedweller]

Originally Posted by Shift

Other noticeable bits:

• Looks like surface parking on site 1? Similar to Station Square? Hopefully not..

Looks like interior at-grade parking and a large adjacent loading area, which suggests a big box retailer/supermarket on the second floor (?)
- i.e. like Safeway on Robson @ Denman. I see escalators to the 2nd floor retail in the northeast corner of that building and a vestibule from the parking.

There seems to be a long stretch of blank wall and service uses (parking access and loading) on the new street on the west side of that block (southernmost block). It would be better if the at-grade parking ad the loading area shared a common entrance from the street (like the 8th Ave entrance of The Rise), allowing more streetfront retail use.

[Shift]

Originally Posted by officedweller

Looks like interior at-grade parking and a large adjacent loading area, which suggests a big box retailer/supermarket on the second floor (?)
- i.e. like Safeway on Robson @ Denman. I see escalators to the 2nd floor retail in the northeast corner of that building and a vestibule from the parking.

There seems to be a long stretch of blank wall and service uses (parking access and loading) on the new street on the west side of that block (southernmost block). It would be better if the at-grade parking ad the loading area shared a common entrance from the street (like the 8th Ave entrance of The Rise), allowing more streetfront retail use.

Ahh yes that makes sense for the parking, with a supermarket / big box retail on the 2nd floor above it. There is even a cart storage area shown on the plan for that building. Possibly a relocated Save-On-Foods allowing for the existing to be demolished?

The new N-S street to the west is actually a lane. Makes sense that the loading/access would be off of it.

[officedweller]

Ah, so that 's Save-on-Foods on the site (not familiar with the area much) - so that makes a lot of sense.

Also makes sense for the loading if that's a lane.

[EhJay]

For Park Boulevard I came across this extention of the plaza at Infinity / Park Place.

[GMasterAres]

Originally Posted by Alex Mackinnon

You may not see that trend continue for a while. Vancouver is now building housing units faster than Surrey. Burnaby is also building very quickly.

I wouldn't be surprised if the next census has Burnaby and Vancouver both growing faster than Surrey due to the amount of backlogged condo developments underway.

Not going to be the case. Surrey not only has more people coming but it outpaces housing units 4 to 1 or more than Burnaby and Vancouver. Burnaby and Vancouver don't have the space to add as quickly as Surrey is. Everyone on these forums focus on high rises being built in Vancouver, Burnaby (Brentwood, Metrotown), and even Surrey because this is "SkyScraper Page" but 90% of the development in Surrey that contributed to that number being nearly 50,000 were all townhouses and row houses which don't get any discussion here. 1 36 storey high rise =

So unless you can find space in Vancouver or Burnaby where they can turn out 100+ new townhouse complexes per year or 5 acre row house developments all at the same time, they'll never catch up or pass the pace but rather would need to wait until Surrey slowed down. Remember the amount of land Surrey has empty that can get new development is basically the entire size of Burnaby's land area combined today. That's what they can build on net new so if Surrey develops 100% of that land to match Burnaby, that's another 250,000+ people easy without any redevelopment of existing or ALR re-allocation required.

And Surrey has been doing this for 20 years now and now showing any sign.

Let's put it in perspective, Surrey in 5 years grew by basically all of North Vancouver City + District combined.

[GMasterAres]

Originally Posted by flipper316

Good old Surrey from 2 lanes to 4 lanes, 2 lanes to 4 lanes etc etc etc. Look at 160, 168, 152, KGB in South Surrey, 72, it just never ends the inconsistency.

Yah it's annoying. In one hand I can understand the costs and complexity of expanding some of these roads and the volume Surrey has to deal with with such a large land mass.

But on the other hand, when they do silly things like this on 100th or 160th like you pointed out, I scratch my head. I would rather they skip another road and just do the whole damned thing right. Or at least do it in quick succession.

Like for 160th. They did 104th > 96th so 1 major road to another major. That leaves 96th > Fraser Highway. They should start that this year. But I would be surprised if it is done in the next 5 years. Like 140th where they widened to 2 lanes around 80th to 88th then it goes to 1 lane until 92nd then back to 2 lanes until 100th then back to 1 lane. It's just ridiculous.

Do the whole thing.

[GMasterAres]

Originally Posted by Alex Mackinnon

That may be true, but it's also true that developments in Surrey are the first on the chopping block when markets slow because the margins are lower.

For reference, Vancouver had almost 3x as many housing compared to Surrey last year and Burnaby had 1.5x as many.

Don't fall into the statistic trap. 2016 Surrey added roughly 3500 housing units. Vancouver was 5500 or so or a bit more. Not 3x (this is from their own websites) but still more.

But here is where you get "trapped" by statistics. The majority of development in Vancouver are condos of 1 or 2 bedroom. So on average a housing unit = 1.5 population conservatively. In Surrey, the majority of the 3500 units were 3+ bedroom townhouses or row-houses so at least 2.5 population average given it is typically families of 2 or more.

So if we go 1.5 per unit x 5500 = 8250 potential people
If we then go 2.5 x 3500 = 8750 potential people so more than Vancouver

Don't JUST go by housing numbers. It is easy for Vancouver for example to throw out "2.8 billion in development permits" or "6000 housing units" but at the end of the day when you're talking about population growth it is how many people per housing unit you're growing by.

The stats from 2011 -> 2016 show very clearly that on average there are more physical human beings per housing unit in Surrey than in Vancouver or Burnaby or other cities. So count is not the whole story.

With respect to high-rises though, you are absolutely correct. Market conditions are still such that a condo project in Vancouver, Burnaby or even Richmond is likely higher a priority for a developer than one in Surrey. That is changing but it certainly the case I agree 100%.

But statistically the cast majority of "residential units" being built in Surrey are townhouses or multi-person dwellings, 3+ bedrooms. That's not the case in most other cities with the exception of some of the other suburbs like Langley, Abbotsford, Coquitlam, and Maple Ridge.

[GMasterAres]

Originally Posted by osirisboy

No sorry. I didn't mean there were no projects that get developed. I'm saying in relation to other cities in Vancouver it seems to take longer here. like park place, It's only taken 10 years to get it topped off. How bout across the street, 12 years and concord still hasn't fully completed it. How bout wave? didn't even bother trying to market the second tower still. But I was thinking more of the smaller infill sites. In south Surrey there are a bunch that are just sitting cleared and fenced off and it's been a decade and nothing has happened. The Bosa site on Johnson (technically in white rock) still not developed with the developer saying in 2014 that they didn't want to proceed due to market conditions! So when I hear and see things like that I just think wtf,

I'm not trying to shit on the success Surrey is having with the city centre renewal. I'm just pointing out how odd it is seeing these vacant lots sit empty when I'm always hearing how Surrey is the fastest growing city etc

Very true. But I think that is a reflection of the immature high-rise tower market rather than a reflection on development across the city itself. The large population increases are a result of the row houses and townhouse complexes being built everywhere. Surrey Central is what sticks out with the high rises under construction but if you drive through Clayton Heights, or Morgan Crossing, Panorama, or even Cloverdale and Fleetwood it is quite apparent that's where the vast majority of the development is happening in Surrey.

I also think that is contributing to the lag in densification really in the central core. Yes there is effort today, but it is a hell of a lot cheaper and there is a hell of a lot more money for a developer to subdivide a 1 acre plot of land and lay down townhouses than to go through the complexities of a large highrise development with commercial or retail space. Not to mention land in Clayton or Fleetwood <<< Surrey Central. There are not many developers around in Metro Vancouver that build high-rise projects and the majority have had focus in Vancouver, Burnaby, and Richmond over the past 10 years or so. Now you're seeing the Concord Pacifics and Bosas of Metro-Vancouver looking to build projects and executing some projects.

Let's not kid ourselves, Concord Pacific has not build a new project in Surrey Central yet to date honestly. This new Park Boulevard will officially be their FIRST project start to finish. Both Park Place and Park Avenue were bankruptcy purchases by them and the projects were either (Park Place) substantially completed already so they just had to keep construction going and dot the i's and t's, or (Park Avenue) the development permit process and architecture process was largely complete and they only tweaked a bit before starting construction. So now they're actually starting to build some projects.

Takes time. The health of development in Surrey though is AOK overall though, just the high-rise market in the core is not at all as mature as surrounding cities.

[Alex Mackinnon]

Originally Posted by jhausner

Don't fall into the statistic trap. 2016 Surrey added roughly 3500 housing units. Vancouver was 5500 or so or a bit more. Not 3x (this is from their own websites) but still more.

But here is where you get "trapped" by statistics. The majority of development in Vancouver are condos of 1 or 2 bedroom. So on average a housing unit = 1.5 population conservatively. In Surrey, the majority of the 3500 units were 3+ bedroom townhouses or row-houses so at least 2.5 population average given it is typically families of 2 or more.

So if we go 1.5 per unit x 5500 = 8250 potential people
If we then go 2.5 x 3500 = 8750 potential people so more than Vancouver

Don't JUST go by housing numbers. It is easy for Vancouver for example to throw out "2.8 billion in development permits" or "6000 housing units" but at the end of the day when you're talking about population growth it is how many people per housing unit you're growing by.

The stats from 2011 -> 2016 show very clearly that on average there are more physical human beings per housing unit in Surrey than in Vancouver or Burnaby or other cities. So count is not the whole story.

With respect to high-rises though, you are absolutely correct. Market conditions are still such that a condo project in Vancouver, Burnaby or even Richmond is likely higher a priority for a developer than one in Surrey. That is changing but it certainly the case I agree 100%.

But statistically the cast majority of "residential units" being built in Surrey are townhouses or multi-person dwellings, 3+ bedrooms. That's not the case in most other cities with the exception of some of the other suburbs like Langley, Abbotsford, Coquitlam, and Maple Ridge.

CMHC says otherwise.

9,759 in Van to 3,471 in Surrey.

[flipper316]

Originally Posted by jhausner

Yah it's annoying. In one hand I can understand the costs and complexity of expanding some of these roads and the volume Surrey has to deal with with such a large land mass.

But on the other hand, when they do silly things like this on 100th or 160th like you pointed out, I scratch my head. I would rather they skip another road and just do the whole damned thing right. Or at least do it in quick succession.

Like for 160th. They did 104th > 96th so 1 major road to another major. That leaves 96th > Fraser Highway. They should start that this year. But I would be surprised if it is done in the next 5 years. Like 140th where they widened to 2 lanes around 80th to 88th then it goes to 1 lane until 92nd then back to 2 lanes until 100th then back to 1 lane. It's just ridiculous.

Do the whole thing.

I totally agree. u can throw in the inconsistencies with sidewalk building as well or lack thereof. Also when a road does get expanded it takes forever. Just look at KGB from Crescent Road to 156th. For the longest time it was a pathetic 2 lane piece of shit. Now it looks like a proper boulevard. I just don't understand it took years to get done in phases. Why not just get all the sections done in one construction season. Sure the traffic tie ups will be longer stretch of road but in the end it'll get done.

[Urbanmetro]

There is a new proposal at KGB and 98 Ave under development proposal 7916-0183-00. 30 story, 94 meter mixed use building. 209 residential suites, 108 hotel rooms included with 8000m2 of commercial space... Impressive location just across from the hub at King George station.

[Flynn86]

Nice is there any photos of what it should look like?

[Shift]

Originally Posted by Urbanmetro

There is a new proposal at KGB and 98 Ave under development proposal 7916-0183-00. 30 story, 94 meter mixed use building. 209 residential suites, 108 hotel rooms included with 8000m2 of commercial space... Impressive location just across from the hub at King George station.

Not new. That is a 2016 application. Has been under initial review for a while now. Likely won't see any renderings until it is ready to go to council.. unclear when that will be.

[Shift]

Originally Posted by EhJay

For Park Boulevard I came across this extention of the plaza at Infinity / Park Place.

That is an outdated rendering and not what Park Boulevard will look like. The tower won't even be in that location. It will be closer to King George Station right beside the current drop off loop.



https://urbansurrey.com/2017/01/14/conco...k-place-tower-heading-to-council-jan-16/

[GMasterAres]

Originally Posted by Alex Mackinnon

CMHC says otherwise.

9,759 in Van to 3,471 in Surrey.

I pulled the numbers from CoV's website so can blame them for the 5500 being incorrect. Regardless, your stats illustrate my point that the majority of the Vancouver units were "multiples" which typically translates to condos, though it can include town houses.

Surrey had multiples as the highest but not such a huge spread between single detached (roughly 2.3:1)+ vs Vancouver (roughly 6.5:1)+. There are a lot of factors. Also keep in mind that quite a few "single detached" are just replacements not net-new. A housing start is just that, a new constructed unit, but doesn't take into account what was removed.

In Surrey typically new housing starts are on empty land. In Vancouver, it is typically replacing something previously. Where my wife used to live for example, there were 10 houses that were torn down and rebuilt. That's 10 houses torn down.. then 10 put in their place so a net increase of _0_ even though on the chart you link it would show "10 single housing starts!"

Stats simply don't tell the whole story. Believe me or not, your choice.

[Alex Mackinnon]

Originally Posted by jhausner

I pulled the numbers from CoV's website so can blame them for the 5500 being incorrect. Regardless, your stats illustrate my point that the majority of the Vancouver units were "multiples" which typically translates to condos, though it can include town houses.

Surrey had multiples as the highest but not such a huge spread between single detached (roughly 2.3:1)+ vs Vancouver (roughly 6.5:1)+. There are a lot of factors. Also keep in mind that quite a few "single detached" are just replacements not net-new. A housing start is just that, a new constructed unit, but doesn't take into account what was removed.

In Surrey typically new housing starts are on empty land. In Vancouver, it is typically replacing something previously. Where my wife used to live for example, there were 10 houses that were torn down and rebuilt. That's 10 houses torn down.. then 10 put in their place so a net increase of _0_ even though on the chart you link it would show "10 single housing starts!"

Stats simply don't tell the whole story. Believe me or not, your choice.

I put that disclamer in there, I get that there isn't a direct correlation there.

It doesn't change the narrative of there being 3x the typical amount of development being done this year though. Lot of those multi-families are happening on brown fields and mixed use areas though. Just look at OV, the Fraserlands, etc...

[officedweller]

Nice summary here:

Growth in Surrey City Centre accelerating

https://urbansurrey.com/2017/03/19/growth-accelerating-in-surrey-city-centre/