BURST
Parts of a multi-billion dollar development in Vancouver’s Oakridge neighbourhood that has been years in the making are on track to open this spring, the project developers say.
Oakridge Park, on about eight city blocks at the intersection of Cambie Street at West 41st Avenue, will consist of residential towers, a new indoor mall, offices and a public park.
In October, QuadReal Property Group revising the opening of the mall from fall 2025 to this spring. The company said this week it is on track for a spring opening. A Time Out Market food hall, which will feature local independent food operators with mid-range to upscale dining options, is also on schedule to open this spring.
The company said this week that a majority of the large public park that will sit above the mall will be completed with the shopping centre and that the five residential and office towers will be completed in the fall.
A spokesperson for QuadReal told Postmedia that “construction is progressing as planned and, at times, work will take place within extended hours to keep everything moving forward.”
While standard hours permitted for construction end at 8 p.m. on weekdays and weekends, the city of Vancouver does allow for major projects to apply for permits to work beyond that time and even to go 24 hours.
The city confirmed this week that the Oakridge development site at 650 West 41st Ave. has a permit that allows overnight work from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. Monday to Thursday between Dec. 10, 2025 to April 10, 2026. However, “this exception only applies to work required for demolishing the existing roof structure and installing new roof glazing over the Oakridge transit station. For safety reasons, this work must occur while the station is closed, outside regular construction hours. Other construction work must be done during regular hours.”
Vancouver-based QuadReal and Westbank co-own the property and are redeveloping it together.
A spokesperson for Westbank said it is expecting about 100 businesses to be ready to open in the shopping centre in the spring.
A Safeway grocery store will return to the site. A Signature B.C. Liquor store, which used to be across the street, will move in. The list of retailers includes several luxury brands — Louis Vuitton, Prada, Brunello Cucinelli, Moncler and Versace.
In recent months, the buildings on the site have been coming together with their dramatically curved lines. The indoor mall and the floors above it, which hold offices, have outside cladding and windows. The towers, including one at the corner of 45th Avenue and Cambie and another farther north on Cambie, however, still show many floors that don’t yet have exterior walls or windows.
Some residents in the surrounding neighbourhood or people who regularly pass by the site aren’t convinced stores will open in spring. Some noticed that work in the fall sometimes went late into the night. One resident said he had seen welders working on frames for installing balconies sometimes stretching a bit after 11 p.m., which was the extended permit hour then.
Construction workers having lunch across the street this week acknowledged what some residents in the area have been observing in recent months — that the framework for some balconies had been installed on the side of one of the towers and then removed and now seems stalled.
Theresa Ladner, who has lived one block east of Cambie on 45th Avenue for decades, is skeptical about the timelines for the opening of the mall and for the towers.
“I don’t believe it. Look at it. There’s no way it will be finished. There are still floors to go,” she said.
Having gotten used to the chaos of construction and other trades trucks and vehicles parking on her street in recent years and also having to drive to Main Street to get her groceries, she is looking forward to the return of Safeway being within walking distance.
“I just don’t think it will be soon,” she said.
Candy Tam passes by the Oakridge site to get from her home to the gym every day. Casting her eye on the site across the street, she said she doubts that the mall could open in a few months judging by the way it looks today.
“I’m hopeful, but you never know these days.”
Glen Brooks said he isn’t an expert in construction, but the mall opening has been delayed before and he wonders how the shopping centre can be open in the next few months when the two main parking entrances will be below the overhead cranes still needed for the towers.
One contractor who used to do work on the Oakridge site and was heading to another project in the area said there have been other major redevelopment projects involving large shopping centres and residential and office towers that have opened in phases, just as Oakridge will be doing.
The shopping centre can operate while the towers are being completed. The Amazing Brentwood in Burnaby, for instance, opened its shopping centre in 2021, while residential towers were completed and even started construction in later years.