Tall & Urban News

Twin towers on both eastern corners of the intersection of Thurlow Street and Harwood Street in downtown Vancouver’s West End neighborhood have been approved. On Tuesday, 21 June, 2022, Vancouver City Council approved Bosa Properties’ Bosa4Rent Homes’ project of building 557 rental homes on the two sites separated by Harwood Street.

While this is considered one project, the towers were split into two site-specific rezoning applications, with the city council voting unanimously in support of each application. TEAM councilor Colleen Hardwick was absent from the vote. Both towers will reach 300 feet (92 meters) with 33 stories. The applications originally called for slightly taller buildings, but this was not permitted by city staff due to the need to follow the city’s West End Community Plan and reduce shadowing on Davie Street to the north.

The north tower at 1332 Thurlow Street and 1065 Harwood Street will contain 279 rental homes, including 224 market units and 55 below-market units, while the south tower at 1066-1078 Harwood Street will contain 278 rental homes, including 223 market units and 55 below-market units. The below-market housing allocation includes replacement units for the residents of the existing four 60+-year-old, low-rise buildings on the development sites.

Five years ago, Bosa Properties originally proposed to build two condominium towers with a similar height and density, but with a different design. It would have included 241 homes, including 143 condominium homes and 98 social housing units. But the condominium-primary proposal stalled due to the market downturn at the time, which meant the social housing units and the high level of community amenity contributions (CACs) were no longer financially feasible.

To move this proposal and several others forward along the West End’s Thurlow Street corridor, in late 2020, city council approved city staff’s recommendation to enable a two-year period of providing developers with the flexible option to build market rental housing with a below-market rental housing component, instead of condominiums with some social housing and allocating CACs worth tens of millions of dollars, as required under the West End Plan. This interim policy has since catalyzed the conversion of a number of previous condominium-primary proposals into rental housing.

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