David Carrigg
Van. Courier
An Urban Fare grocery store will be part of a $20-million development at Bute Street and West Hastings. Photo by Dan Toulgoet
Residents of high-rise condo developments sprouting up around Coal Harbour and Triangle West will no longer have to trudge 12 blocks up Bute Street to Davie to do their grocery shopping.
Next summer, they’ll be able to cross West Hastings at Bute and shop in a 26,000-square-foot Urban Fare grocery store, part of a 300-foot residential tower being built at the southwest corner of the intersection.
The $20-million development will be the first along Bute between Melville and West Cordova to allow retail outlets, in what’s being labelled the “Bute Street High Street” retail district.
When public meetings were held in the fall to discuss including a grocery store in the project, the response was overwhelming, said Mark Ehman, a partner with Downs Archambault Architects, the company designing the project at 1201 West Hastings.
“All the residents were very keen on having a grocery store in their community. There were no opponents,” said Ehman, adding the Urban Fare store will be smaller than a typical supermarket.
Currently, residents of the many glass-clad residential towers between Georgia Street and Waterfront Road and Thurlow and Jervis streets must walk, cycle or drive to the Super Valu at the corner of Davie and Bute streets to go grocery shopping.
One man passing by where the proposed Urban Fare will be located was laden down with four Super Valu shopping bags. The man said he lived in one of the new towers on West Hastings Street and was looking forward to stepping across the road for goods, instead of walking uphill 12 blocks.
On Thursday, city staff will request that restrictions on retail along the north four blocks of Bute Street be lifted. The report was prompted by several requests from developers to include retail space in residential developments on that portion of Bute.
The retail restrictions were imposed about 10 years ago when the Coal Harbour and Triangle West developments were proposed.
At the time, Robson Street retailers opposed the idea of permitting stores in the neighbourhood, because of fears of competition.
But the report going to council says Bute Street is now the primary pedestrian route linking Coal Harbour and Triangle West with Robson Street and the West End.
“It is in the public interest to establish a neighbourhood commercial centre for the growing resident population in the area,” says the report by development planner Anita Molaro. The report stresses the area will cater to smaller, community-based retail outlets, rather than the kinds of destination boutiques found along Robson Street.
Corene West, executive director of the Robson Street Business Improvement Association, said the association has heard rumblings about the creation of a shopping precinct on Bute Street, but she did not have enough information to comment.
Besides the grocery store, Ehman said the $20-million development at 1201 West Hastings St. will include four live/work townhouses at the base of the building and 136 condo units.
Three blocks south, at the corner of Bute and Melville streets, a development application has been filed for a 400-foot tower, with 7,500 square feet of retail space on the ground floor.
A proposal has also been forwarded for a one-level restaurant at the corner of Cordova and Bute streets.
