[Surrey] Century City Holland Park | 49m, 65m, 117m, 135m | 11, 19, 36, 42fls | U/C

[Nites]

https://www.surrey.ca/sites/default/files/planning-reports/PLR_7918-0217-00.pdf

They increased the rental building size from 204 to 243 units.





















SW Market tower: 42 storeys / 135 metres
NW Market tower: 36 storeys / 117 metres
SE Rental tower: 19 storeys / 65 metres
NE Office building: 11 storeys / 49 metres

[scryer]

Lol, coast capital is starting to look underbuilt these days.

The transformation in Surrey Central has been jaw-dropping to say the least.

[EhJay]

That will really fill in the area. King George Skytrain is going to be more built up than Surrey Central SkyTrain.

[Vin]

Wow, this part of King George is going to be a vibrant hub of Surrey's downtown! I like the idea of a couple of downtown hubs being developed concurrently, and Surrey Central doesn't disappoint in that regard.

[officedweller]

I only count 10 storeys for the office building in the rendering.
Wish that were taller.

Just noticd that the Holland Pointe office is similar in height to Coast Capital and the Holland Pointe rental tower
is similar in height to the Hub Phase B office building.

Is there a zoning policy to step down to reduce shadowing in that area (maybe for Holland Park)?

[GMasterAres]

I don't think there are step down requirements for shadows. I think it is all to do with demand why they aren't taller. The original proposal was a 30 storey office tower or so and with the Central 2 office going up, I think they are just keeping it to 10 storey or so similar to the other office towers around the area including those in "Innovation Boulevard."

I don't mind the step down. If you add up all the office space around King George station, it equals a large single office tower and the area needs jobs more than office height right now to bring it closer to critical mass imho.

[officedweller]

Thanks.

[seamusmcduff]

Mostly to do with the CC Plan and how much density the City is willing to support at that location. Land Use plan calls for 5.5 FAR on this site.

[rpvan]

Originally Posted by EhJay

That will really fill in the area. King George Skytrain is going to be more built up than Surrey Central SkyTrain.

What's the tower count for both areas looking like currently?

King George has had some speedy progress over the past few years with the concord and pci developments (not going to count Holland Parkside since I'm not sure when we'll ever see a groundbreaking for this one) but Surrey Central will definitely catch up over the coming 5-10 years.

[Flynn86]

Found this on Facebook

https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/king-george-station-surrey-9905-king-george-boulevard

[rpvan]

Originally Posted by Flynn86

Found this on Facebook

https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/king-george-station-surrey-9905-king-george-boulevard

Article mentions first phase completion slated for 2024.

This will be a multi-phase development, with the first phase including the rental housing tower and a portion of the commercial spaces slated to reach completion in Summer 2024.

Looks like that would signal a construction start for early next year.

[LeftCoaster]

Originally Posted by officedweller

I only count 10 storeys for the office building in the rendering.
Wish that were taller.

It's too bad phased towers are so difficult and infeasible, this would be a perfect spot to build 10 storeys now and another 10 when the Surrey office market has matured.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by LeftCoaster

It's too bad phased towers are so difficult and infeasible, this would be a perfect spot to build 10 storeys now and another 10 when the Surrey office market has matured.

That's an interesting idea. I can only recall two projects like that - Bosa (I think) had a commercial tower in Burnaby, and Bentall V on Burrard was initially 11 storeys shorter. You're right about the difficulties. One practical problem is you have to have a fairly large adjacent undeveloped site for future staging. (Bentall V had the part then developed with the Cactus Club). They also had an empty elevator shaft that they used to pump concrete up. They had to leave the top floor of the 22 storey first phase vacant too.

When I spoke to a senior Bentall rep soon after it was completed he said he would never take that approach again - it wasn't easy keeping tenants happy in the first phase, or convenient to build, and it didn't really save any money overall as the second phase cost more as it was so much more constrained. Building the whole thing in one hit, and having a third unleased for a few years would have been easier.

[GMasterAres]

Originally Posted by rpvan

What's the tower count for both areas looking like currently?

King George has had some speedy progress over the past few years with the concord and pci developments (not going to count Holland Parkside since I'm not sure when we'll ever see a groundbreaking for this one) but Surrey Central will definitely catch up over the coming 5-10 years.

Within about 1 block of KGS is:

Completed (8):

2 x Park Place
1 x Infinity
2 x Park Avenue
1 x Hub (Coast Capital)
1 x Surrey Village
1 x Balmoral

UC (or close to UC aka digging) (7):

2 x Park George
1 x Park Boulevard
4 x Hub (Phases B/C)

Proposed (I'm not counting Avani... because we know why) (7):

2 x Hub (Phase D)
4 x Hollande Point
1 x Central City 2

So if the proposed happen, in 5-6 years we could have 22 towers within about 1 block of King George Station. Not too shabby.

Edit:

Sorry you said both areas, for Central City if we expand more than 1 block then you'd have to include a few more towers for KGS like the ones proposed on KGB by 96th and innovation. So it isn't 100% easy to compare the two. Just assuming within reasonable distance to Surrey Central station:

Complete (7):

1 x Central City 1
1 x 3 Civic
1 x University Alumni Tower
1 x Wave
1 x Evolve
1 x Ultra
1 x Prime

UC (or close, again digging.. close enough) (4):

1 x One Central
2 x University District
1 x Linea

Proposed (and some Approved) (8):

3 x Brightside
3 x Thind
1 x West Village 4
1 x GEC

Total 19 from my count. I may have missed something?

Again for Surrey Central they aren't all within 1 block like KGS so KGS has a higher count right now even with proposed and is a lot more dense, but the build around KGS is almost 100%. Like after this round, Surrey Central has way more space around it to build, unless with King George you start getting development across from Hub in the Innovation Boulevard or on the other side of 100th where the strip mall is right now.

So Surrey Central few blocks could very quickly have a higher count given the amount of space around to build. I'm also not counting Anthem's project which could count if Wave/Linea count for example and a few others like Brightside which are as far walking wise as the Anthem project.

Either way things are looking good right now.

[dferch]

It's definitely getting harder to say KJ or SC station because the "clusters" are getting larger. Park George is about as far from KG station as Parks & Yards, or as Georgetown is from SC. Also The Holland 1 & 2 or Passages aren't close to either but are very close to other towers.

Once everything that's proposed has been built it will be hard to see the borders

[rpvan]

Thanks for the list above.

Downtown Surrey as a whole still has a suburban-like feel with towers clustered only around SkyTrain stations but it is slowly improving. Projects like central city 2 development will be huge in "connecting" the surrey central node with the king george node and hopefully encourage more infill between stations.

[GMasterAres]

Originally Posted by rpvan

Thanks for the list above.

Downtown Surrey as a whole still has a suburban-like feel with towers clustered only around SkyTrain stations but it is slowly improving. Projects like central city 2 development will be huge in "connecting" the surrey central node with the king george node and hopefully encourage more infill between stations.

Yah challenges are total land area for Downtown Surrey and spread of concentration. We are spoiled with Downtown Vancouver having 600+ high rises. Most urban downtowns in the US and Canada have way way less towers, they are just super concentrated. Aka just picking 3 random cities Dallas, Houston, and Los Angeles, and their core downtowns have < 80 high rises over 7 stories. Downtown Portland feels way more urban but doesn't have many more high towers that Surrey does today with what is under construction. It has a lot more infill that are 5-8 storey though + more concentration in one area.

Downtown Surrey land wise is about the same as Downtown Vancouver up to Main Street. I don't think it will feel super urban until at least 200 high rises are built, or at least 50 to 60 in close proximity to one Sky Train station, or possibly some higher FAR infill is built think Upper Manhattan where you get a lot of 6-8 storey buildings that are edge to edge on the property. I don't think we'll get that though, Metro Vancouver as a whole seem to be allergic to FAR ratios that truly make most downtowns feel downtown imho.

So we have a ways to go.

Anyway drifting off topic of this thread now so back to the the towers. I think the big part of this development is actually the rental. That's a lot of market rental being built around KGS which is, I think, quite important between Phase C The Hub, and this project. Could start to use more to help with affordability and getting more bodies in the area to drive up demand for commercial and retail.

I'm happy to see quite a few projects add rental based buildings rather than just "affordable" which doesn't actually help compared to purpose built rental.

[montyhallgoat]

Originally Posted by jhausner

Yah challenges are total land area for Downtown Surrey and spread of concentration. We are spoiled with Downtown Vancouver having 600+ high rises. Most urban downtowns in the US and Canada have way way less towers, they are just super concentrated. Aka just picking 3 random cities Dallas, Houston, and Los Angeles, and their core downtowns have < 80 high rises over 7 stories. Downtown Portland feels way more urban but doesn't have many more high towers that Surrey does today with what is under construction. It has a lot more infill that are 5-8 storey though + more concentration in one area.

Downtown Surrey land wise is about the same as Downtown Vancouver up to Main Street. I don't think it will feel super urban until at least 200 high rises are built, or at least 50 to 60 in close proximity to one Sky Train station, or possibly some higher FAR infill is built think Upper Manhattan where you get a lot of 6-8 storey buildings that are edge to edge on the property. I don't think we'll get that though, Metro Vancouver as a whole seem to be allergic to FAR ratios that truly make most downtowns feel downtown imho.

I agree the "urban" feel often comes from how concentrated buildings are and not necessarily x number of towers in the neighbourhood. Also it's vital to have smaller city blocks, narrower street ROW and lack of surface parking lots to make the area feel "urban". Vancouver and Portland all share the characteristics of smaller city blocks and narrow streets, so does most European and Asian cities.

Also keep in mind highrises in Vancouver have much smaller tower footprints and are shorter than a typical highrise in other cities. Vancouver would be building 2-3 short towers with podium on a lot that would be typically used for a single skyscraper with plaza at bottom. Also if you stick to "skyscraper" (150m+) definition, then entire British Columbia actually has less skyscrapers than Calgary alone, but Vancouver, sure enough, feel very urban because of the concentration of buildings and narrow street ROW.

Auguably, Brentwood Town Centre would never be truly urban as long as Lougheed Hwy and SkyTrain runs through the middle, no matter how many towers or how good transit access are. SkyTrain station and street retailers are all centred around Lougheed Hwy and it's not pleasant or fun to walk along wide empty sidewalk. Even SOLO district's Skyline Dr feel very much like failed attempt at suburban lifestyle centre.

Surrey's City Centre require developments to add narrow "urban lanes" with sidewalk or allocate future ROW through their development sites (Central Ave, George Jct, "urban lane" behind SFU SEE or Mega Centre, etc) to shrink city block sizes. Both Surrey Central and King George stations are built slightly off of busy KGB and zoning allows developers to build out away from KGB, so hopefully we don't end up being like Brentwood. Perhaps in the next decade or so, City Centre might shift towards SMH and future Green Timbers station as more jobs are created there.

With that all being said, existing strip malls around KGB are vital for small businesses as they often cannot afford to lease from big developers. We wouldn't know what City Centre would look like after all strip malls are torn down and it's not fun seeing Starbucks, Tim Hortons and Shoppers replacing those small businesses and other retail fronts sitting empty like it is on University Dr or at Infinity.

[GMasterAres]

In fairness to the big companies, what isn't often said is that being a small mom and pop shop doesn't make you a good retail business. There are plenty of small retailers in Surrey Central that are absolute garbage and a Tim Hortons or Starbuks would be a welcome improvement.

Just wanted to say that because there seems to be this notion in general that big-box = bad, and mom and pop = good. It's just not true. I subscribe more to cities needing a diversity of retail on street front rather than specifically focusing on mom and pop.

[dferch]

I agree. The changes force companies to retool their value proposition and really think about core distinctives that drive customers. Mom and pop stores can easily thrive beside chain businesses if they are focused on creating value instead of just "being a mom and pop shop"