New development pitched for downtown Vancouver would include B.C.’s tallest tower

A massive new development is being pitched for downtown Vancouver.

The Holborn Group says the project is about an ambitious city building on currently underutilized land and would include supportive housing, a hotel and what would be B.C.’s tallest tower.

The four towers, spanning three sites at 501 and 595 West Georgia and 399 Abbott St., would be designed by Henriquez Partners Architects, drawing inspiration from “rare and ancient glass sea sponge reefs, whose ecological strength and resilience have shaped both form and structure.”

The tallest tower — a stand-alone hotel — is proposed at 1,033 feet (315 metres) and would reference the skeletal lattice of sea sponges, according to the proposal.

Three of the four towers would range from 783 to 1,033 feet (239 to 315 metres) on West Georgia Street, and a fourth tower at 402 feet (122 metres) on Abbott Street.

The fourth tower, which Holborn said would be gifted to the City of Vancouver, will contain 378 social housing units, including three artist-in-residence studios, a child-care centre and a public Indigenous Art Gallery.

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In total, the development will create 1,939 new homes, a 920-room hotel, 70,130 square feet of conference space, Indigenous-led reconciliation through art and introduce significant public amenities across both sites.

At the top of the hotel tower, the project aims to include a publicly accessible observation deck designed by PFS Studio envisioned as a “forest in the sky.”

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In addition, the proposed 17,000-square-foot public plaza would connect West Georgia Street with retail and restaurant pavilions, programmed cultural space and
Indigenous art.

Musqueam artist Susan Point has been invited to transform the public plaza, interfacing the Randall Building into a site of storytelling through contemporary Indigenous expression.

At Abbott, there would be a 5,150-square-foot Indigenous art gallery and community space, along with three artist-in-residence suites for the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh (MST), guided by consultant Gordon Grant.

“The project will showcase a genuine and informative act of Truth and Reconciliation,” said Grant. “It will provide a platform for Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh artists to display a small piece of rich and powerful cultures that all of the Nations can be proud of.”

Holborn has been trying to develop the area for eight years but the proposals have been rejected by city hall.

This proposal was submitted to the City of Vancouver on May 2.

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