One of the largest residential buildings by unit count to ever rise in downtown Victoria will reach occupancy this year between Chatham and Herald streets at Government Street.

 

 

Known as Spencer Block, the five-storey complex spread across 1.5 acres of land will deliver 278 market rental apartments and a large contingent of ground floor retail spaces, where an automotive repair business and surface parking lots were once situated.

 

Vancouver-based developer Denciti Development Corp. describes the project’s location as “uniquely positioned at the border of Victoria’s Chinatown, Old Town, and Rock Bay neighbourhoods.” Construction began in 2023.

 

Spencer Block’s density infusion as part of a single phase of construction appears to be the largest for downtown-proper since 1970, when the 19-storey View Towers block at View and Quadra streets was built with over 350 rental homes.

 

 

With just a five-storey massing, Spencer Block will add even more housing density than the recently completed Hudson House tower at the Hudson District, despite its 23-storey height and expansive residential podium, where a total of 245 units were brought to market in 2023.

 

Although density jumps like Spencer Block and Hudson House are notable, downtown Victoria is in-store for an absolutely monumental jump in rental housing between 2026 and the end of the decade, with more than 2,300 units earmarked for the city centre within projects already underway (one of which, an 11-storey tower along the 800-block of Fort Street, completed earlier this year). The pipeline of new rental housing, according to Citified’s tracking of south Island construction activity, will represent historic growth in the downtown’s housing stock, unmatched by any prior four or five year period, and quite likely an entire decade's worth of past housing construction.

 

For an in depth look at downtown Victoria’s current pipeline of rental units, see Citified’s February, 2026 article Record number of rentals numbering in the thousands now underway in downtown Victoria.

 

Denciti Development, meanwhile, is completing construction on another rental property in Greater Victoria, not far from the downtown core in Esquimalt. The 135-unit Anchor building is nearing occupancy at the former location of Esquimalt Bingo, at 820 Esquimalt Road. C

 

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