WHAT’S NEXT FOR 1444 ALBERNI / 740 NICOLA?
Stalled development is aiming to scale back its original plans

by Jake McGrail
(click images to enlarge)

**A RENDERING OF THE PROPOSED 1400 ALBERNI TOwers (landa global Properties/Asia Standard americas)**

Of all the places that have been touched on in this column over the last couple years, the stretch of Alberni Street between Nicola and Broughton might have the longest-running history for a development that hasn’t actually gone anywhere.

All the way back in 2014, the plot known as 1444 Alberni / 740 Nicola Street (which encompasses an entire city block and will be referred to going forward in this article simply as 1400 Alberni) was acquired by Wall Financial Corporation for a cool $83.5 million.

The company had its own plans to redevelop the site, but that changed when they received an offer they couldn’t refuse from the duo of Landa Global Properties and Asia Standard Americas, who bought the site for nearly double the previous purchase price.

**Another rendering from the original proposal (landa global Properties/Asia Standard americas)**

In 2017, a proposal was submitted to turn the existing buildings - an older 19-stories apartment tower and office buildings - into a pair of much larger residential towers. Standing at 43 and 48 storeys, the towers would combine to hold 443 homes - 314 of them strata and 129 rental, ranging from studios all the way up to 20 four-bedroom units.

In addition, the developers stated that the towers would be constructed to Passive House standards, a strict set of requirements to create a much more energy efficient and environmentally-friendly build, and would be the tallest such buildings in the world. There would also be a daycare with spots for 56 children built on the site, as well as land along Nicola Street set aside to be turned into a small public park.

**The current buildings at 1444 Alberni (Prospero International realty)**

Approved in 2018 by city council (at that time still under mayor Gregor Robertson) talk of the redevelopment then went pretty quiet for the next seven years. The residents and commercial tenants at the existing buildings along 1400 Alberni continued about their business, with no breaking of ground of any sort on the approved project.

Clearly seeing their original plan as no longer viable, Landa and Asia Standard went back to the drawing board and submitted a new, revised application in July of last year. It still calls for two towers of the same height and same number of homes in them, but with two key differences: no more Passive House certification, and an attempt to cut a deal on the amount of cash owed to the city.

Under the original plan, the developers were on the hook for around $67 million in cash in the form of Community Amenity Contributions (CACs), money that goes to the city and is earmarked for building or funding different public spaces and services.

In the new plan, the developers are asking for the city to accept not receiving any cash in exchange for 51 of the 129 rental units being designated as social housing - homes controlled by the city with the goal of them being a below-market option for low-income families, people with disabilities, and other vulnerable populations.

“In-kind” contributions like that are a feature of the CAC policy (with the daycare and public park from the original proposal already providing around $8 million in designated in-kind contributions), but it’s certainly a massive change in terms of cash flow and it’s up for debate as to whether valuing those social housing units at $1.3 million each is a fair assessment.

At least, there will hopefully be a chance for some debate sometime soon. The Q&A period on the ShapeYourCity page for this proposal came and went back in November, but we’re still waiting on any public word about when a decision might come down and when a new public hearing on the revisions to the application might happen.

There certainly is a little bit of a grey area to this situation, given that it’s a revised version of a previously approved application, and in the ShapeYourCity Q&A the spokesperson stated that they feel that “the revised proposal does not present substantial changes to the form of development of the application.” At the same time, they later acknowledged that “the City is required to hold a public hearing on all rezoning applications prior to Council making a decision on the application.”

Until whenever the next step of the current application process is announced, the project remains in a limbo. On the Landa and Asia Standard websites themselves, details on the project remain scarce with no floor plans or really much of anything besides some renders of the proposed towers’ exteriors. The Asia Standard site also still lists the project’s estimated year of completion as 2024, which now feels a tad optimistic.