The Commercial-Broadway Safeway redevelopment has finally arrived

On Thursday, May 15th, Vancouver City Council will hear the rezoning proposal for 1780 E Broadway St, to redevelop the parking lot adjacent to Commercial-Broadway Skytrain station into three mixed use buildings. These buildings will contain rental housing, at-grade commercial space, and a childcare. As well, the development will include a public plaza and an additional public space connected to the Skytrain station.

If you would like to comment, please do so here, and select “CD-1 Rezoning: 1780 East Broadway” as the agenda item. If you would like to speak in-person or over the phone, please do so here, and select “CD-1 Rezoning: 1780 East Broadway” as the agenda item.

Skytrain started running on December 11th, 1985, just in time for Expo 86. People living in New Westminster, then a small town of not even 40,000 people, could commute by skytrain directly to Vancouver’s growing downtown. As they did so, they would pass by a parking lot just east of Commercial-Broadway Station.

In 1994, nine years later, Skytrain finished its expansion into Surrey with the opening of King George Station. People living in Surrey, which was and is growing rapidly, could join New Westminster residents in their ability to cross the metro region by Skytrain. They, too, would pass by that same parking lot.

Shortly after the Millennium Line opened in 2002, the Broadway Commercial Transit Village Plan envisioned a new housing development to connect more people to the Skytrain system. Facing local opposition, the plan was cancelled.

In 2016, thirty-one years later, the Expo Line connected to Production Way-University Station to enable travellers from Burnaby, Coquitlam and Port Moody to reach destinations on the Expo Line. As you can probably guess by now, if they travelled through Commercial-Broadway Station, they would also pass by that parking lot.

Around that time, architect Bing Thom proposed a development at the site. The development would include substantial amounts of housing to remedy the housing crisis. About the proposal, Bing Thom remarked, “Everyone says housing is so expensive, but it’s so expensive because we have these suburban houses still in the heart of the city, and you don’t find that in major metropolises.” Vision Vancouver experienced a major defeat in the 2017 by-election due to popular dissatisfaction with the state of the housing market.

Now, in 2025, nearly forty years later, the idea is back. City staff required two resubmissions of a 2019 application before the applicant withdrew. Another application in 2023 was required to resubmit once, but is the application that will finally go before council. Similar to prior applications, the development envisions residences (in this case, rentals), public space, mixed-use space, and a daycare.

This parking lot has provided housing for cars instead of people for decades. During that time, Vancouver has grown from obscurity into the largest city in Canada’s third largest census metropolitan area (CMA). This is an opportunity to provide rental housing, commercial and retail space, and childcare, in a city where all of those are scarce, while displacing no one.

If you would like to comment, please do so here, and select “CD-1 Rezoning: 1780 East Broadway” as the agenda item. If you would like to speak in-person or over the phone, please do so here, and select “CD-1 Rezoning: 1780 East Broadway” as the agenda item.