Telus proposes 25-storey Kitsilano rental housing tower in Vancouver

Another secured purpose-built rental housing tower project with a modern critical telecommunications facility is proposed by Telus for the Broadway Plan area in Vancouver.

On behalf of Telus Living, Ledcor Property Investments has submitted a new rezoning application to redevelop the Kitsilano site of 2022-2212 West 10th Ave. — located at the southwest corner of the intersection of Yew Street and West 10th Avenue, which is a five-minute walk from SkyTrain’s future Arbutus Station and 99 B-Line bus exchange, and just east of Connaught Park.

Currently, the property is occupied by the company’s B.C. Telephone Cedar Exchange Building, a large telecommunications utility building originally built in 1945, and a surface vehicle parking lot.

Telus’ ongoing transition from copper telephone wires to fibre optics enables a significantly smaller footprint for the company’s telecommunications exchange facilities.

In contrast, fibre optic links provide up to over 1,000 times as much bandwidth as copper, and can travel up to more than 100 times further as well. One fibre strand — half the width of a human hair — can transmit about one million phone calls or the equivalent internet data at any given time.

2022-2212 West 10th Avenue Vancouver Kitsilano Telus Tower

Walking distance from SkyTrain’s future Arbutus Station; site of the existing Telus telecommunications exchange utility building at 2022-2212 West 10th Ave., Vancouver. (Google Maps)

Site of the existing Telus telecommunications exchange utility building at 2022-2212 West 10th Ave., Vancouver. (Google Maps)

Concept of 2022-2212 West 10th Ave., Vancouver. (DYS Architecture/Ledcor Property Investments/Telus Living)

The redevelopment will construct a significantly smaller standalone telecommunications utility building at the southwest corner of the development site, fronting the laneway. The 9,300 sq. ft. utility building will span three levels, including two underground levels.

For the remainder of the site, there will be a 255-ft-tall, 25-storey tower with a L-shaped, four-storey base podium.

This tower will contain 221 secured purpose-built rental homes, including 176 market rental units and 45 below-market rental units, based on the Broadway Plan’s requirement to set aside at least 20 per cent of the rental residential floor area at below-market rents. The unit size mix is 38 studios, 95 one-bedroom units, 65 two-bedroom units, and 23 three-bedroom units.

Residents will have access to shared indoor and outdoor amenity spaces on the fifth level and on the ground level, with the development’s internal outdoor amenity spaces at ground level separating the residential uses from the utility building.

Concept of 2022-2212 West 10th Ave., Vancouver. (DYS Architecture/Ledcor Property Investments/Telus Living)

Creatively, this project features a waste heat recovery system that captures the significant heat produced from the servers in the utility building and channels it into a usable heat source for the residential tower’s space heating and hot water systems. This serves to not only reduce the emissions and operating costs of the residential tower, but it also provides a cooling effect for the utility building.

This will be a phased project, with the new utility building first achieved on a portion of the existing surface parking lot, followed by the demolition of the existing utility building to commence work on the tower on the rest of the site.

“The property is one of a number of sites in the city where significant investment in fibre optic infrastructure by TELUS over the past decade is helping drive opportunities for redevelopment that will add much needed rental homes to neighbourhoods, like Kitsilano, with the intent of transforming sites that have housed infrastructure uses for many decades into developments that will add much needed rental homes to many neighbourhoods,” reads the application designed by DYS Architecture.

Concept of 2022-2212 West 10th Ave., Vancouver. (DYS Architecture/Ledcor Property Investments/Telus Living)

Three underground levels will provide 78 vehicle parking stalls and 409 secured bike parking spaces.

The total building floor area will reach 165,100 sq. ft., establishing a floor area ratio (FAR) density of a floor area that is 6.65 times larger than the size of the 25,000 sq. ft. lot, including 0.15 FAR for the ground-level portion of the utility building.

While this area between Arbutus Street and Connaught Park is currently mainly occupied with low-rise, multi-family housing, it was previously a cluster of industrial properties anchored by Molson’s former Arbutus facility and an operations works yard for City of Vancouver crews. Nearly all of the industrial properties in the area underwent redevelopment in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Earlier this year, Telus Living and Ledcor also submitted a rezoning application to build a similar 26-storey tower project at 354-380 East 10th Ave. in Mount Pleasant, containing rental housing, ground-level retail/restaurant uses, and a new smaller telecommunications exchange utility building, replacing the existing facility on the site. It also includes a waste heat recovery system.

According to Telus, its ongoing work transitioning from copper to fibre optics is driving significant real estate development opportunities for the company.

As fibre optics requires a much smaller footprint, they are unlocking redevelopment opportunities for a higher and better use that also responds to the need for more housing across two dozen communities across British Columbia, including 13 cities within Metro Vancouver.

Through Telus Living, the company is looking to build over 4,000 new homes across the province, plus new commercial and industrial developments.