One of the Lower Mainland’s most active developers plans to add a pair of residential towers to Burnaby’s ever-shifting skyline.
Wesgroup Properties has applied to develop two high-rise towers in Burnaby’s Maywood neighbourhood, within walking distance of the SkyTrain Metrotown Station. A 35-storey south tower would be constructed during the project’s first phase, followed by a 38-storey north tower.
The project would add a total of 733 units to Burnaby’s housing mix — 617 condominiums, along with 166 non-market rentals located within the south tower’s eight-storey podium.
The proposed site, located at 6280-6350 Willingdon Avenue, has been home to a pair of three-storey apartment buildings since the late 1960s. The properties currently combine to provide 116 rental units.
In 2019 the City of Burnaby mandated that new multi-family residential buildings reserve 20 per cent of the development for rental housing. Developers are also required to replace every rental home demolished and offer rental rates 20 per cent below the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation average.
An internal courtyard will separate the towers, providing an east-west connection between Cassie Avenue and Willingdon Avenue. Amenity spaces are planned for the lower floors of both towers, the podium rooftop of the south tower, and the rooftop of the north tower, while five underground levels would provide parking spaces for 804 vehicles and more than 1,500 bicycles.
“The design incorporates fully wrapping the envelope with strong horizontal balcony elements with curved corners,” reads an overview of the development’s design aspects by Chris Dikeakos Architects.
“These curved corners acts to soften the buildings’ response to the existing geometric urban forms. The towers are equally balanced with the same treatment and they speak harmoniously to one another, but at the same time the unique and distinctive design respects the surrounding urban context.”
The development site is within Burnaby’s Metrotown Downtown Community Plan, which sets guidelines for additional tower-based density, with heights decreasing gradually toward the single-family neighbourhoods south of Willingdon Avenue.
