Development at Bayview Place on Songhees is about to start inching closer to the water, as the man behind the 20-acre site hopes to break ground on the next condominium tower early in 2018.
Ken Mariash, founder of Focus Equities, has plans for a 26-storey, 195-unit building along Kimta Road overlooking Lime Bay. He hopes it will be completed by the summer or fall of 2020.
“We’re itching to get going,” said Mariash, noting they have been talking for years about what development at that end of the site would look like.
Mariash said he has gone through two dozen versions and a host of architects trying to plan the next phase of the site. In the end, as he says he usually does, he has decided to design it himself.
Mariash said even when others build at Bayview — Bosa Properties has built the last two towers, Promontory and Encore — Focus Equities has its DNA running through the concrete.
“We are the ones with the 20-acre vision,” Mariash said, noting his company does all the prep work, design and permitting, and takes each project through the approval process.
“That’s because we want to ensure the whole vision holds together. [Bosa] took our permits, our design and followed it through.”
Mariash said the next building, for which he has yet to apply for a development permit, is once again being driven by his team.
“Whether we build it or not, it will still be by us,” he said. “It’s hard to let someone else run loose.”
Mariash said the building will maintain the same kind of style as the previous towers, with a brick and glass appearance that pays homage to the brick buildings of the historic railway Roundhouse on site as well as tying in with the first building on the site — Bayview One.
“The modern combination of brick and glass integrates the old and the new. The building layout also offers a diversity of residential units to allow for a broad range of pricing,” said Mariash.
“We have taken great care in selecting the right site for this building, as it begins to establish a grand entrance to the site, which will introduce the historic railyard buildings.”
The new tower will be the first Mariash has designed in eight years and will be the first of what could be five buildings on the western side of the Bayview lands.
Mariash’s vision for that end of the site includes a hotel, a rental building, other condo towers, an open-air theatre and cultural space, and a cluster of buildings toward the corner of Catherine Street and Kimta Road that will house restaurants, shops and a museum.
Mariash is using the combined work of Musson Cattell Mackey Architects, HDR/CEI Architecture, Miller Hull Architects and Aldrich Pears Associates to create what he hopes will be a culture and heritage district near the harbour-front entrance to the Bayview site.
He said he’s keen to get started, since there is a list of between 300 and 400 people waiting for housing at the site.
The building is expected to take about 24 months to complete.
Mariash is still planning to finish the Roundhouse development, which will breathe new life into a national historic site on the western side of the Bayview property.
The Roundhouse, one of five historic structures on the property, is seen as the centrepiece of 70,000 square feet of retail space. It was built by the Canadian Pacific Railway to service rolling stock from the E&N Railway.
Currently, the 10,000-square-foot car shop, one of the buildings across from the Roundhouse structure, is being used to host events, including neighbourhood groups, charities and even performances by David Foster.
