This rezoning of two adjacent properties has been anticipated for some time. The Army & Navy departmental store shrank over recent years, as floors were closed and departments merged, until covid put the final nail in the businesses coffin, and it closed in 2020. Now the Cohen family who own the buildings have teamed up with Bosa, hiring Michael Green (with Arcadis, the new name for IBI), to replace the West Hastings building with a 19 storey residential rental tower, and the longer West Cordova frontage with an 11-storey office and retail building.
The BC Indigenous Housing Society are involved in the residential project, to operate 48 social housing units located in the podium, with 141 market rental units (14 with deep subsidy) on the upper floors. MGA are known for innovative sustainable design, and the buildings are proposed as low-carbon mass timber structures, targetting LEED Platinum status.
Despite the currently elevated office vacancy rate, the Cordova building is proposed as 264,700 sq ft of office space behind the preserved facade. The heritage Dunn-Miller block, Callister block, and Hayes McIntosh block facades would all be preserved, restored, and tied back to the new building. The departmental store, which first occupied some of the site in 1948, has over the years totally rebuilt the space behind the facades, so they’re the only historic element still in place.
Changing City Updates 