The first project out of the gate at the recently approved Roundhouse at Bayview Place masterplanned community in Vic West is an affordable rental tower on Esquimalt Road near Catherine Street, Citified has learned.

 

 

TL Housing Solutions on behalf of Greater Victoria Housing Society has submitted plans to the City of Victoria in pursuit of a development permit for 209 studio-through-three-bedroom units classified by the proponent as affordable housing, in a 22-storey all-residential building (see Citified profile) at 251 Esquimalt Road.

 

The proposal will feature three levels of underground parking accommodating 76 vehicles, including 13 visitor stalls. The architectural design, from Victoria-based de Hoog Kierulf Architects, features a relatively slim massing without balconies rising to a height of 72 meters, a brick-clad podium element of three storeys, and a green ornamental box on levels 16 through 18 at the northwest corner. The building’s main entrance will be oriented towards Esquimalt Road.

 

In a letter submitted to the City, TL Housing Solutions says the tower’s “unit mix and common spaces have been carefully tailored to meet BC Housing's Community Housing Fund requirements to ensure affordability, livability, and a unit mix that meets the needs of diverse households,” in reference to Provincial guidelines that allow housing providers to tap into government project funding.

 

As part of the project, contaminated soil will be remediated to reverse impacts related to a century of railyard use.

 

The Roundhouse portion of Bayview Place secured formal rezoning approvals from the City earlier this year, after many years of redrawn plans and concept changes at the large-scaled industrial parcel bordered by Esquimalt Road, Catherine Street, Tyee Road and Kimta Road. The lands formerly served as the Victoria terminus of the Esquimalt & Nanaimo Railway which ceased passenger operations in 2011. The railway remains an active rail corridor, however, despite no rail traffic currently operating along the Victoria section of the line.

 

 

At full build-out, Roundhouse is estimated to deliver approximately 1,900 to 2,000 units of housing, commercial spaces, at least one hotel, and civic spaces. Building heights of up to 32 storeys have been approved.

 

Currently at the Bayview portion of the site on Esquimalt Road at Tyee Road stand three condominium towers of 11, 18 and 21 storeys, completed between 2011 and 2019. A five-storey seniors residential project is approved to their south on Tyee Road at Kimta Road, and its housing would be in addition to the Roundhouse masterplan’s projected density. C

 

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