Derrick Penner
Sun
An artist’s rendering of the proposed new Fairmont Pacific Rim Vancouver, a luxury hotel on the Coal Harbor waterfront.
ARCHITECTURE I Developer Ian Gillespie and architect James K. Cheng are claiming another iconic spot of Vancouver‘s skyline with their latest development, the Fairmont Pacific Rim Vancouver hotel, a $350-million, 47-storey, 457-foot-high luxury tower that will grace the foot of Burrard Street.
In September, Gillespie’s Westbank Projects and the Peterson Group bought the lot, adjacent to the Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Centre’s expansion, for $86 million, and on Friday revealed details of what will become a sister tower to their existing showpiece Shaw Tower.
Fairmont Pacific Rim will be a five-star, 415-room Fairmont hotel and 173-unit luxury condominium development in the same vein as the West End‘s Shangri-La tower, which is also a Westbank and Cheng collaboration.
Gillespie believes it will be the city’s largest building by square footage (800,000), on what he described as “the best site in Vancouver” on Coal Harbour, next to the convention centre and prominent in future postcard-views of the downtown skyline.
“What excited me most was the idea that I could finish off what I started with the Shaw Tower,” Gillespie said in an interview.
He wants Fairmont Pacific Rim to stand next to Shaw Tower and, while it will look different, have people recognize that it was built by the same developer and architect. Gillespie added that he is driven, in part, by a desire to raise the esthetic bar of Vancouver architecture.
The new hotel joins a growing list of iconic building projects that Gillespie is involved in, that starts with the Shaw Tower and includes the Shangri-La — which at 60 storeys and 640 feet will be the city’s tallest building, and the redevelopment of the old Woodward’s store building on the downtown east side.
Gillespie said the building’s site is already zoned for his intended design, and the architect’s concept has been approved by the city’s design panel. His next step will be to submit a development permit in January, with an intent to put it to market in May and begin construction by July.
Vancouver uber realtor Bob Rennie, of Rennie Marketing Systems, will handle sales of Fairmont Pacific Rim’s condominiums, which he said will sell for between $500,000 and $3.5 million, and he doesn’t see any difficulty with the market absorbing its 173 luxury units.
Rennie anticipates that about 70 per cent of buyers will be local, with the other 30 split between the United States, Europe and Asia.
Westbank Projects will own the building’s hotel, which will occupy its first 21 floors, and be managed on a long-term contract by Fairmont Hotels & Resorts.
Warren Markwart, Fairmont Hotels vice-president of hotel development, said the Fairmont Pacific Rim, the company’s fourth in Vancouver, is an important addition for the company to make in advance of the 2010 Winter Olympics.
“Vancouver has a tremendous future in front of it,” Markwart said.
© The Vancouver Sun 2005
