Vancouver’s chief planner Gil Kelley is recommending city council approve a rezoning application that would allow Lululemon Athletica to build mega complex in the city’s False Creek Flats neighbourhood.
In the report that will go before council on Tuesday, the Vancouver yoga gear giant is asking the city to amend its Broadway Plan Interim Rezoning Policy to allow for the construction of 11 to 13-storey office building with a total floor area of 582,951 square feet.
The complex, which is slotted for a plot of land at the corner of Foley Street and Great Northern Way — two blocks east of the new Emily Carr University campus, would be more than four times the size of the company’s current 130,000-square-foot Kitsilano headquarters at 1818 Cornwall Avenue.
In June 2018, Council approved its Broadway Plan Interim Rezoning Policy , a year process to create a comprehensive area plan that limits rezoning applications being considered within the study area. However, Kelley, the city’s general manager of Planning, Urban Design and Sustainability, is recommending an amendment to the plan to allow for the approval of Lululemon rezoning application based on “exceptional circumstances.”
He says the Lululemon facility will advance the objectives of the False Creek Flats Area Plan by:
• intensifying job space close to transit and amenities;
• securing additional public space (China Creek);
• and improving walking and cycling connections.
Copyright Postmedia Network Inc., 2019
