Rezoning proposal for 13-storey Lululemon mothership set for public hearing next week
Credit to Author: Harrison Mooney| Date: Thu, 16 Jan 2020 21:18:28 +0000
Development plans for a Lululemon mega-complex in the Vancouver’s False Creek Flats neighbourhood will go to a public hearing next week.
The 500,000-square-foot Lululemon Athletica mothership, which the company hopes to build at 1980 Foley St., two blocks east of the new Emily Carr University campus on Great Northern Way, would be more than four times the size of their current Kitsilano headquarters — large enough to unite all Vancouver Lululemon staffers in one place.
But the 13-storey, futurist office building, with its focus on a ground-to-top atrium that brings daylight into the structure and a brise-soleil skin that provides shade without obstructing views, would also be nearly double the allowable height for a structure under council’s current Broadway Plan interim rezoning policy.
A key design feature is a brise-soleil skin – comprised of a series of interlocking but discrete shading fins – that floats over the structure on the faces that receive the most sun.
The Vancouver yoga gear giant has asked the city to amend the development plan, and applied for rezoning last spring, and the city has so far been amenable. Last July, Vancouver’s chief planner Gil Kelley said Lululemon’s application could be approved based on “exceptional circumstances,” and the item was referred to public hearing in December.
The proposal, “to increase the maximum building height from 36.6 metres to 65.6 metres to permit the development of a 13-storey office building,” is listed on the agenda for the public hearing scheduled for Thursday, Jan. 23.
Artist’s rendering of the Lululemon mothership, viewed from the north side.
Artist’s rendering of the Lululemon mothership, viewed from the south side.
While the primary land use for the proposed building is office, the amendment also would allow for a ground-floor restaurant and retail space, which was supported by Emily Carr students during a Lululemon-hosted community consultation at the university last June.
City staff suggests this “will create a more vibrant and public street-level frontage along Great Northern Way and Foley Street.”
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