Exciting Development Proposal: Valley Grocery Store, Restaurant, and 479 Residential Units Planned for Lynn Valley
A new grocery supermarket, a restaurant, commercial retail, a civic plaza and four residential building that range in height from 9 to 12 storeys with 479 residential units: At a workshop on April 24, District of North Vancouver councilors will discuss a major development project at the Lynn Valley Safeway site at 1170 East 27th Street.
The proposal includes 13,400 square feet of civic space and three levels of underground parking for 661 vehicles. Approximately 148 rental housing units are proposed and there is a possibility of social housing, though the exact number has yet to be determined. According to a staff report, the civic space could be used for a new firehall, which would free up the existing firehall location for projects such as social housing, youth services and childcare.
A small space for TransLink is also proposed.
The proposal also includes ‘significant land dedication’ on the East 27th street frontage for vehicle, bike, pedestrian and transit infrastructure such as transit stops, shelters, and bus lay-over spaces. Approximately 25% of the site is proposed to be dedicated to the District.
In November last year, District staff completed their review of the preliminary application. If the applicant wishes to proceed with this project, the next step would be to submit a detailed application.
Sounds good. Except for the 661 parking spaces. The surrounding area is increasingly residential so the focus should be on getting people to these new amenities without having to jump in the car.
It will be a grocery store. People bring their cars and fill them with groceries.
Some will, some won’t. If we focus on making surrounding streets safe for walking and biking we can shift some of that traffic to other modes.
Why would they want to put a firehall under a residential tower?? And next to a grocery store? High traffic area as well as high pedestrian traffic area, doesn’t fit well with emergency vehicles coming and going.
And why should we have to pay rent on this proposed mall outlet firehall? After all we will have quickly sold the current firewall land that we now own but no longer will once this stupid proposal is pushed through without challenge!!!
This is not “A new grocery supermarket”. They will be tearing during the existing Safeway structure and relocating the store to the ground floor, within the proposed development, in the same footprint, plus the parking lot in front of the store.
The entirety of Safeway’s existing surface parking lot will disappear. The store frontage will extend to to the the way too narrow existing “Valley Centre Ave”. Access to the Underground parking will be long the “the lane” where Safeway’s truck presently travel.
The entire South parking facing 27th will also be gone. There is already another development (1177 Lynn Valley Road) replacing the entire West parking lot AND the Black Bear Pub, so perhaps the “new restaurant” spot being proposed is for them?.
There are presently ~ 112 surface parking spots on that lot. The proposal has 661. Minus 112, minus 1 per unit – 479 is a net 70 “additional parking spots” for the Civic Space, restaurant and other users, assuming only one parking spot per unit, and none for staff.
Subtly, there are three tower entrances (but 4 towers?), including a segregated “poor door”/poor tower for the renters, curiously furthest away from the where the “bus loop” is. That also implies separate, duplicate communal facilities, or do the renters get to use the future “Civic gym”, while the owners get a private gym ? Why not a real mixed-use(r) development?