The City of Delta has received an application to develop a four-building, 800-plus-home project on the current site of a shopping centre on Scott Road.
A rezoning and development application for the 2.4-hectare Delta Shoppers Mall (8037 to 8087 120th St.), located between the Real Canadian Superstore and Delta Rise, was received by council on Feb. 13. The proposed project includes a total of 877 residential units, 11,691 square metres of office space and 7,502 square metres of commercial space.
A total of 643 market condo units, as well as office space and at-grade retail, is planned in two 32-storey towers atop five- and nine-storey podiums.
(Editor’s note: For clarity, 32 storeys is the total height including each building’s podium. The wording in the above sentence is derived from the staff report to council.)
A 10-storey midrise on the site’s west side would be include 150 senior housing units, while a six-storey building next door would include 67 market and 17 non-market rental housing units. Both building would have at-grade retail space.
The project has been designed to form a central plaza with public spaces between the podiums of the towers, and includes indoor and outdoor common amenity space in several locations and a total of 1,685 parking stalls in an underground parkade.
The development would also include two childcare facilities, each serving 30 children — double the total childcare spaces included when the project was presented at a Committee of the Whole meeting on Nov. 22.
READ MORE: Highrise development eyed for North Delta mall (Nov. 29, 2022)
The proposal is consistent with the site’s current designation under Delta’s Official Community Plan (OCP) and the North Delta Area Plan (NDAP), which permits a maximum height of 32 storeys, but the site would need to be rezoned to allow residential units.
Since it aligns with the OCP, the rezoning application does not require a public hearing under bylaw changes adopted by council on Dec. 12, though council can still elect to have a hearing if it wants to. The project is the first to make its way through the approval process under the new rules.
Unless directed otherwise, the proposed consultation process for the application will include placing public notice signs on site; sending a notification letter to the surrounding property owners; consulting external agencies including the City of Surrey, TransLink and the Delta School District; creating a project webpage at letstalk.delta.ca; and holding four in-person public information meetings.
At November’s Committee of the Whole meeting, David Thom, president of architecture firm Arcadis IBI Group, said the retail on site would comprise a mix of shops, restaurants and entertainment that would include the existing TD Bank branch and a “health and fitness club,” creating “curated retail” that “works together and becomes a place in its own right.”
Thom called the site the beginning of a “remarkable village.”
“I think there’s a vision in North Delta to see a kind of unique and special place,” he said.
Value Property Group CEO Chris Andison told council the project would not only add a “tremendous amount” of much-needed housing to the area, but create a “city within a city.”
“It’s a tremendous opportunity to provide an active commercial environment [and] amenities for the people that live there and live in the area because it’s a large enough site to do it,” Andison said. “It’s a tremendous site, we thought, to really add all of those things which we felt were strongly needed along the 120th Street corridor.”
The plan was well received by council at the time, with Mayor George Harvie calling it the “first time I’ve seen in many years something that’s ticked a lot of boxes.”
READ MORE: Walkable mixed-use neighbourhoods focus of task force’s vision for Scott Road
editor@northdeltareporter.com
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