Surrey City Centre Redevelopment Plans

[Galaxy]

What would be nice to see is the city of Vancouver transfering funds to Surrey to build way more affordable housng. Vancouver could sell off land they are holding for future affordable housing now and take the money and build way more units in a place like Surrey and create the faciities that people living in these units need like mental health clinics and way more. The added benefit like others have stated getting some of these people out of places like the downtown eastside will really help them.

[jollyburger]

Originally Posted by Galaxy

What would be nice to see is the city of Vancouver transfering funds to Surrey to build way more affordable housng. Vancouver could sell off land they are holding for future affordable housing now and take the money and build way more units in a place like Surrey and create the faciities that people living in these units need like mental health clinics and way more. The added benefit like others have stated getting some of these people out of places like the downtown eastside will really help them.

I don't think Surrey would take the money.

[dferch]

Avis car rental next to safeway has completely shut down and moved locations

[vanvansurrey]

Originally Posted by Galaxy

What would be nice to see is the city of Vancouver transfering funds to Surrey to build way more affordable housng. Vancouver could sell off land they are holding for future affordable housing now and take the money and build way more units in a place like Surrey and create the faciities that people living in these units need like mental health clinics and way more. The added benefit like others have stated getting some of these people out of places like the downtown eastside will really help them.

I don't think moving affordable housing to Surrey would be beneficial for the DT core they're trying to build on top of what circumstances they have been dealing with e.g. tent cities and homelessness. They're trying to create more jobs in the area and if they had to accommodate downtown eastside residents there would restrict all the development potentials for businesses. City of Vancouver should be able to deal with the problem in the city itself rather than pushing them away. **Vancouver resident here.

[Nites]

Originally Posted by jollyburger

I mean I wonder who will have more towers in 20 years?

Originally Posted by logan5

Obviously Coquitlam Centre.

Since the Evergreen extension was built and operational what new proposals has Coquitlam City Centre had? Most of the action has been around the Lougheed Town Centre and Burquitlam area.

[SpongeG]

Originally Posted by Nites

Since the Evergreen extension was built and operational what new proposals has Coquitlam City Centre had? Most of the action has been around the Lougheed Town Centre and Burquitlam area.

the application has now gone in for a 10 tower development at the Coquitlam Chrysler site on lougheed hwy.
https://www.tricitynews.com/news/long-ti...-close-to-make-way-for-towers-1.24175400

Phase one application for Coquitlam Centre is also in. But no real info onto what it entails other than developing the NE parking lot and old Sears store.

Other than that there are a few smaller things, like single or double towers, there are many plans but afaik nothing submitted yet. Such as the old Safeway at Sunwood Square site is to be redeveloped on Lougheed Highway.

[logan5]

Originally Posted by Nites

Since the Evergreen extension was built and operational what new proposals has Coquitlam City Centre had? Most of the action has been around the Lougheed Town Centre and Burquitlam area.

The Coquitlam City Centre Plan hasn't been finalized yet. Once that happens, then proposals/development applications will start flooding in.

[SpongeG]

Coquitlam centre is expecting to complete its plan over 60 years, will be dead before seeing it.

There are application signs on site for phase 1 at the mall, they do describe what is planned but i never really paid attention. just will involve demolishing sears and some new buildings.

[rpvan]

For comparison sake...How many towers each do both city centres have as of now?

I don't think Coquitlam is that far ahead of Surrey. If anything, Surrey has really caught up in the last five years and is on track to easily surpass Coquitlam city centre in the coming decade.

[brophy87]

Nope its going to be Surrey that outpaces Coquitlam in tower count. Just look at the population projections through to 2046.

https://www.surrey.ca/business-economic-development/1418.aspx

Coquitlams only projected to grow to 240k by 2046, nowhere near Surreys 820k. Also Surrey has three times the land available and its all relatively flat

https://www.coquitlam.ca/docs/default-so...growth-background-paper---march-2019.pdf

Residential areas in some parts of Surrey like Newton might as well be classified as high density with the amount of people packed into some of those homes.

[scryer]

Healthy competition among the metro areas never had me worried anyways because it results in nice urban areas.

I think that the more austere competition to look out for in the far-future will be for office space and job space creation especially after the fall out from COVID-19 is reassessed. I think that it's safe to say that the next 15 years will see a glut in office space and job space creation along Broadway but beyond that I am unsure if the COV will be able to keep up with the job space demands (if the economy warrants it), and that's where I see Surrey stepping in. But that's just based on speculation .

[officedweller]

Remember that originally, inder the Livable Region Strategic Plan (1996?):
Coquitlam was the major Regional Town Centre north of the Fraser River and
Surrey was the major Regional Town Centre south of the Fraser River.
Surrey's status was bumped up to "Metropolitan Centre", but they are both intended to be major centres.
I seem to recall someone posted a project for Coquitlam that had office space, so that's a good sign.

[Nites]

Don't forget about Lark Groups Health and Technology District. 6-8 Low rise buildings with over 1.5 million sq ft of office and medical space. Projecting in the neighborhood of 15,000 jobs. It's been moving pretty good with the 3rd building City Centre 3 about 40% complete.

[EhJay]

The City has started clearing the lots on the south west corner of Holland Park. There are still 3 houses that have occupants and only 1 of them left for the City to purchase. I imagine it will be a while until they go ahead with developing that side of the park, but nice to see them starting to clean it up a bit.

[GMasterAres]

Originally Posted by logan5

Skytrain has been in Surrey for over 20 years now, with not a lot of tower development. Coquitlam Centre already has more towers than Surrey, and they have had Skytrain for only 3 years. People don't want to pay the high rise condo premium in Surrey.

Surrey should sell itself as a very affordable alternative for housing, which it is right now, but it could be even more so if they focus on wood frame units, and stacked town-houses. In the long run Surrey would attract more residents.

I agree with the first statement, Surrey has done a lot of faltering in building towers and a core over the past 20 years, and actually more. But your numbers are wrong:

Surrey Center: 27 completed, 12 UC, 12 proposed
Coquitlam Center: 27 completed, 0 UC, 4 proposed

If you want to talk all of Coquitlam vs all of Surrey, then ok Coquitlam > Surrey in towers, but you said centers.

A big contributor to Surrey's delay though in construction has been historically low land values due in part to the distance from Vancouver combined with the perception of Surrey for decades as being a rough city filled with criminals. That has only shifted in the last 10 years to the point that really only certain parts of city center still hold that stigma, for example the Gateway area, and rightly so. I've lived in Surrey most of my life and still wouldn't buy a place in that area.

That said, if you look at the pipeline of both Surrey and Coquitlam, there is no question that Surrey will end up with a far larger downtown and much of that has to do with simply the size of the "downtown" footprint compared between the two cities.

Surrey has earmarked a size comparable to the Vancouver Downtown peninsula to be the downtown with dense development:

Surrey Central Plan Area: 5.55 sq.km (medium to high density designated)
Coquitlam Center Area: 1.47 sq.km (medium to high density designated)

Granted still work in Coquitlam to do, but there is no way the 1.47km is going to grow massively. Vancouver downtown area is roughly 5.3 sq.km in size if you use Main Street as the "border".

As for positioning itself as the affordable area, it is. This forum plays up all the "high rises" being constructed but I've said it in the past in other threads, for every 1 high-rise under construction or proposed in Surrey, there are 20 townhouse complexes or 4-5 storey condo buildings being built today.

The VAST majority of population growth and housing starts in Surrey are townhouses and medium density outside the central core with areas like Grandview, Morgan Crossing, Cloverdale, Panorama, etc., leading the pack by huge swaths. You can still buy brand new (with warranty) 3-bedroom 1500+ sq foot townhouses with a garage for under $600k in most parts of Surrey even along Fraser Highway which will get SkyTrain eventually.

Good luck on that in many other parts of Metro Vancouver including Coquitlam.

[rpvan]

Another article on the upcoming development at 105 Ave and University Drive.

A SkyTrain runs through it: Thind Properties garners
approval for Surrey towers
https://www.urbanyvr.com/thind-properties-surrey-
towers/

[brophy87]

Overlay 9s Loop made for the upcoming 105 ave & University Dr development. Click the image to get fullscreen though it doesn't infinite loop in the full mode

https://www.reddit.com/r/SurreyBC/commen..._runs_through_it_threebuilding_mixeduse/

[trofirhen]

Originally Posted by brophy87

Overlay 9s Loop made for the upcoming 105 ave & University Dr development. Click the image to get fullscreen.

https://www.reddit.com/r/SurreyBC/commen..._runs_through_it_threebuilding_mixeduse/

Cool. I like it when this happens - rail transit through a modern building. imho very futuristic, avant garde, "funky/sleek," you name it. Cities in Japan sometimes have stuff like this.

[rpvan]

Not sure if this one's been mentioned yet, but here's an article detailing the 13265 104th Ave development. It's on the northwest corner of the 104th Ave/133rd St intersection.

Two-tower Surrey project includes 175 new affordable rental units
https://www.urbanyvr.com/western-canadian-properties-group-surrey/

[Vin]

Originally Posted by scryer

Healthy competition among the metro areas never had me worried anyways because it results in nice urban areas.

I think that the more austere competition to look out for in the far-future will be for office space and job space creation especially after the fall out from COVID-19 is reassessed. I think that it's safe to say that the next 15 years will see a glut in office space and job space creation along Broadway but beyond that I am unsure if the COV will be able to keep up with the job space demands (if the economy warrants it), and that's where I see Surrey stepping in. But that's just based on speculation .

Put everything into perspective, the urban sprawl did not even have to go south of the Fraser in the past if Vancouver could densify like European cities in the first place. The creation of a suburb within Vancouver and not allowing downtown to grow actually created all the suburb municipalities today. Otherwise, Delta, Surrey, Richmond, Langley would still largely be agrarian today, which should rightly be so.