A historical waterfront site in Coquitlam is finally seeing action.
Some 15 years after Beedie Living put its application before the City of Coquitlam, the company is now ready to start marketing its master-planned community to the public.
On Monday (June 12), Beedie Living launched its vision that will see up to 13,000 residents call Fraser Mills home, on the 96-acre grounds at the southern end of King Edward Street.
Its investment?
“In the billions. With a B,” Rob Fiorvento, a managing partner at Beedie Living told the Tri-City News Monday during a tour of the lands now being serviced.
Currently, the highlight of the property is a $10-million presentation centre, close to the Fraser Mills entrance off United Boulevard, that’s built using massed timber from B.C.
It will be open this fall, with two display suites, when sales for the first condo market tower, called Début, go live. It’s expected Tower 1 will be ready for move in by 2026.
Meanwhile, the rental units will be built in the second phase of the development.
Here’s the breakdown for Fraser Mills:
- 5,500 new homes in 20 buildings (meeting the city’s 10 per cent minimum quota for three-bedroom units)
- home choices include high-rise condos, low-rise condos and townhouses
- 461 rental homes in one tower (266 market rental units and 195 non-market rental units)
- public community centre
- elementary school
- more than 400 childcare spaces (69 spaces in Phase 1)
- commercial, office, light industrial and recreational amenities
In addition, Beedie, which has owned the land since 2004 and plans to be the sole developer, will be the first company to partner with TransLink to provide a bus shuttle.
The company is paying $1.2 million per year to have the public vehicle run from Fraser Mills to the Braid SkyTrain station every 15 minutes.
“It’s a multi-year commitment,” Fiorvento said.
Monday’s marketing push comes nearly a year after Beedie Living founder Ryan Beedie spoke at city hall about his desire to get things moving on the site that’s been vacant for years (previously, it was used as the temporary staging area for the Port Mann Bridge rebuild).
Last April, Ryan Beedie described the waterfront hub as a “once-in-a-generation development opportunity” and acknowledged the time it’s taken to get the plans right.
Still, city council set timelines and warned Beedie it would face penalties if it continued to postpone the mega mixed-used redevelopment for Coquitlam.
Today, Beedie is “ahead of schedule. We are waiting for the city” to process applications and permits, Fiorvento said.
“We are pushing to go faster than the city.”
Fiorvento said a number of revisions were made to the master plans since they were introduced to city hall in 2008, including making the recreation centre “non exclusive,” as well as purchasing and amalgamating the Wastetech site to the east, off United Boulevard.
“It’s a better plan all around,” he said, adding the presentation centre on the former AirCare site is a model of how Beedie plans to build Fraser Mills: with care and quality.
He said other than the former Wastech site, the old sawmill grounds had “little to no real issues with contamination”; the fill, mostly from the river, also raised the site about 10 feet.
Meanwhile, the company hopes to incorporate components in Fraser Mills that harken to the sawmill’s boon days, showcasing West Coast and heavy timber elements.
As for the floodplain, it’s already above the 200-year level and, once big construction starts, the pile driving won’t be too disruptive for neighbours, he promised.
“We love doing business in Coquitlam,” Fiorvento said.
“It’s the biggest community that we have invested in…. We are building for the end-user and our quality is superior than most of what you find out there. We are not here for the short-term. We are here for a long time.”
