Construction is set to begin on a 14-storey tower adjacent to City of North Vancouver municipal hall - one of only a handful of purpose-built rental projects started in the city in decades.
Hollyburn Properties is set to break ground on the 130-unit Marlborough Tower 2 at the southeast corner of Chesterfield Avenue and 14th Street this week.
You're forgiven if you don't remember it coming to council. Paul Martin was prime minister and the NHL season was cancelled due to a labour dispute when the city and Hollyburn inked a 2005 agreement that saw Hollyburn swap its property where the City Library now stands for the land that had been a commercial parking lot.
After leaving the property as a commercial parking lot for nine years, Hollyburn opted to apply for a building permit this year.
"We're sort of in an environment where it's a perfect storm of economic factors that allow for rental construction today that weren't really available nine years ago," said Hollyburn director David Sander, noting construction costs have come down and stabilized, the rental market has strengthened and financing for construction is at all-time low interest rates.
The building will house 70 one-bedroom suites, 50 two-bedroom suites, six penthouse units and 10 houses at street level and 0.75 parking stalls per unit. There is additional parking for residents and visitors at the Marlborough Tower 1 across 14th Street, which has excess spots. Under the zoning, the building must remain rental.
Sander said he expects the units will be mainly sought by local professionals and young people who won't be buying on the North Shore.
"I hope that we get a lot of hospital workers and people from city hall and a lot of police because those are the major employers in the area," he said.
The city has been trying to encourage construction of purposebuilt rental units as developers have mostly favoured condominium projects in the last decade, according Emilie Adin, the city's deputy director of community development.
A 2012 study conducted by Metro Vancouver estimated that 23 percent of the city's rental housing stock is at moderate or high risk of redevelopment, Adin said, and the city has obtained 242 purpose-built rental units since 1980.
"Prior to that, virtually all of the rental units were built in the '50s, '60s and '70s so they're nearing end-of-life and that's why it's really important now for the city to support construction of rental units," she said.
