Approved! City Council Passes Oakridge

Ivanhoe Cambridge’s $1.5B Oakridge Centre redevelopment project got the green light from city council, but not without a few speed bumps.

Some in the community think the project restores an ugly mall surrounded by parking lots, breathing life into the Cambie corridor. (People back then didn't think it was ugly, but they also didn't think suede jackets with tassles were ugly either.) Others think that the community there will suffer from too much densification. Councillors in opposition also expressed concern about the shortage of parkland, and that the parkland factored in would be located on the roofs of buildings. (Bring sunscreen.) Ivanhoe VP retail development Graeme Silvera tells us the six acres of rooftop park the city will own is part of a “unique urban landscape not found anywhere else in the city.”

It's an excellent real-life example of a functional urban park that is similar is Emery Barnes park in Yaletown, Graeme says. Oakridge, next to the Skytrain, calls for 11 towers up to 44 storeys, including over 300k SF of new office buildings and a doubling of the current retail space. The city sees the project as a hub to help support population growth in Metro Vancouver over the next 30 years.

Graeme adds that what was not noted in the public hearing is that 50% of the site (14 acres) will be “publicly accessible open space” with almost five acres at grade in the form of parks on Cambie Street and 45th Avenue and four large public plazas. There’s still work to be done with the city to finalize the zoning agreements with the city, but this is a “very significant milestone,” he says.