BURST
Plans to dramatically transform one of Richmond’s central landmarks, the sprawling Lansdowne Centre shopping mall, into a mixed-use community passed an initial hurdle recently with city council’s approval of a master plan for green space on the site.
The proposed redevelopment of the 20-block site calls for 24 towers with a mix of residential and office space, 4,500 homes for over 10,000 residents, 700,000 square feet of retail space and four blocks worth of park space.
The scale of the project rivals or exceeds that of other major mall redevelopment projects in Metro Vancouver, such as The Amazing Brentwood and Metropolis at Metrotown developments in Burnaby, and the high-profile Oakridge Park project under construction on Vancouver’s west side, which has 14 towers on about 11 blocks.
The Lansdowne park plan approved by council last week calls for a civic plaza that could hold special events and showcase art; a central park area that would include a perimeter walking loop, destination playground, sports courts, off-leash dog area and water play area; a neighbourhood plaza for garden-like spaces; and a so-called “linear park” — a tree-lined promenade that would connect with the Richmond Olympic Oval.
“This park land is big,” said Jason Chan, manager of parks planning, design and construction at the City of Richmond. “The developers will be paying the costs of these parks and this plan sets out the expectations for each space, but there will be flexibility in how they are met. Right now, pickleball is the hottest thing, but in the future, it may be something else.”
The Lansdowne site is bound by No. 3 Road, Lansdowne Road, Alderbridge Way and Kwantlen Street and is near a Canada Line SkyTrain station.
The whole redevelopment is still in the early stages and will be carried out over multiple phases that will take many years to complete. The first residential buildings aren’t expected until 2030.
But the approval of the park plan has renewed chatter in the community about the massive endeavour and its potential impacts.
Projects like this reshape property values, rental demand and how a city feels to live in, Arjun Bains, a lifelong Richmond resident and real estate agent, recently posted on social media.
There is a big question for those watching it unfold, Bains wrote: “Will this mega project boost long-term value for homeowners or flood the market with too much supply?”
In an interview, Bains said he has sold presale and resale units in the nearby RC at CF Richmond Centre project that is a 11-block-area of 2,000 units over 12 towers and said that concerns for potential buyers and residents in the area are pretty consistent when it comes to these larger projects.
Will the new developments be accompanied by new school and traffic infrastructure?
“Most people that I have spoken to aren’t against the development. They just worry about gridlock if upgrades don’t happen concurrently with the development.”
Bains said he has been observing the glut of condos on the market, including units that are completed and unsold as well as those further back in the development pipeline. Like others, he is trying to understand how cost and type of units are contributing to this.
“I think this (Lansdowne) project is going to put Richmond on the map, similar to the way Brentwood and Oakridge and some of these other larger developments will. But what we’re noticing, especially in this type of (slower economic market), are issues with the amount of absorption the market can handle.”
It means developers will hold back the number of units they release onto the market and slow down their building timelines. Aside from the current downturn, getting the combination of housing — from market condos and rentals to the number of social-housing units — will be key to a successful master plan, said Bains.
The next step for the Lansdowne site is for its owner, Vancouver-based VanProp, to go to city council in 2026 for approval of plans it’s making with joint-venture developer partner Bosa Properties for the first of seven phases.
The first phase includes three mixed-use buildings that will be built in sequence in the northeast corner of the site, which is currently occupied by parking spaces.
Asked for comment on what VanProp, which bought the site in 1984, can learn from watching other major mall redevelopment projects, such as Brentwood and Oakridge, VanProp CEO Jesse Galicz said there’s been a lot of policy that has been developed over time that considers the long-term future of Metro Vancouver.
This “sets out the mix of housing, from the supportive to the affordable and then market. We all know there are challenges around these.”
He acknowledged there are no easy answers, adding that: “How we respond to evolution is we work with the cities and try to understand their policy and their policy direction so that we can be working collaboratively with them to achieve the goal of bringing housing forward.”
There are many challenges that are well-known, he said, from the current market conditions to the cost of delivering housing and financing.
But he thinks the payoff for the community will be huge.
“If you spend time in Richmond, it’s such a great place. No. 3 Road is evolving. You see what’s happening at city hall and at other areas throughout Richmond, along the Canada Line … That’s really spurring this, that growth in the community and each of these developments. And obviously we think Lansdowne is bringing a lot more.”