Victoria’s transformative Roundhouse development took over 20 years to ‘untangle’

If the long-envisioned Roundhouse development in Victoria builds out as planned, the capital city’s skyline will be vastly recast.

In late January, after lengthy public hearings and more than a decade of development dialogue, Victoria City Council approved in principle a zoning amendment bylaw by a 7 to 2 vote.

The new zoning will allow Focus Equities to start construction of nine buildings, ranging from 10 to 32 storeys. The project, dubbed Roundhouse at Bayview Place, is in a Victoria West area known as Songhees, across an inlet from downtown Victoria.

Focus Equities owner Ken Mariash intends to continue with his long-crafted vision for a 20-acre piece of land overlooking Victoria’s Inner Harbour and Washington’s Olympic Mountains.

“It’s taken over 20 years to untangle,” Mariash said from his office near the planned development. “Our time has been spent on zoning…mostly unzoning.”

Over a roughly 10-year buildout, 1,870 residential units (condos and apartments) are planned, with 215 of those considered “affordable” rentals, along with 70,000 square feet of commercial space and the remediation/renovation of onsite heritage buildings, including a former E&N Railway roundhouse, designated a national historic site.

Extensive cleanup work is needed due to toxins like creosote on the former industrial portion.

Once completed, the Roundhouse, anchored by a major grocery store, is intended to be a retail/dining/entertainment hub in Victoria, surpassing Vancouver’s Granville Island.

“It’s going to be the life of the place,” says Mariash, who’s also been thinking about having a Ferris wheel on the site.

Groundbreaking may start at the end of 2024

Victoria city coun. Chris Coleman, who voted to approve the rezoning, admits it was a very contentious process.

The city received several thousand letters and emails, over 100 electronic presentations and more than 50 public presentations, addressing everything from a dislike of the applicant, to too much density, too-tall buildings and concerns about the property’s heritage value.

“It’s a balancing act, chasing housing,” says Coleman, who’s confident the city will get what was promised and that it will be delivered properly.

Each phase of the project, to be carried out on roughly 10 acres, is tied to the completion of community amenities with the social/rental component being the priority. The first phase involves construction of supportive housing and rental units, says Coleman.

But the actual groundbreaking, on what Mariash says is a multibillion-dollar project, won’t start until the end of 2024 or beginning of 2025.

“We’ve got to do pre-sales,” Mariash says.

A development permit, followed by building permits, still need to be secured.

Once in hand, Mariash says his focus will be on condos.

“We want to do something that’s elegant. That’s easy to live with,” he says.

Apartments, with a cost-to-build of $4 to $5 per square foot, won’t be much larger than 500 square feet. Going larger would put rental costs at about $3,000 per month and up. But the apartments will be finished quicker than condos.

While public disapproval of highrise architecture was high, Mariash says 26 or 27-storey buildings were necessary. When the lower six floors sell below cost, the top floors generate the profit, selling for twice their cost, he says.

Coleman says opponents cited that Bayview highrises would render Victoria a Vancouver or Seattle, but he notes Vancouver’s tallest, the 62-storey Shangri-La, is far higher than Mariash’s proposal.

Finding tradespeople could be a challenge

Mariash started his Victoria saga in the late 1990s, when the Mariash Group bought what had been industrial and harbour land and proceeded to devise a master plan.

A total zoning revamp was needed. Instead of squat, low-rises, highrises, retail space and green space became the game plan. It took until 2009 for initial rezoning to be approved and the first phase of buildings were not finished until 2018.

Meanwhile, financiers were collecting carrying costs of more than $1 million per month, says the Saskatchewan-born Mariash.

The possessor of several degrees including an MBA and architecture degree, Mariash admits his enthusiasm for resurrecting what was a dead zone was not without hubris.

“I said, I’d do it if I control everything. That was my first mistake,” he says.

The second misconception was that the unsuitable zoning could be quickly changed.

In 2008, Focus Equities bought the adjacent Roundhouse land in Victoria, which is where the nine new towers will rise. The hope, says Mariash, was that rezoning would smoothly follow on the heels of the first phase.

It didn’t happen.

So in 2017 Focus and the City of Victoria decided to undertake a full rezoning of the second-phase property.

Almost seven years later, the Roundhouse at Bayview Place can proceed.

Since Mariash began his Bayview exercise, he’s hired close to 30 design or contracting firms.

One more challenge Mariash expects to face is finding tradespeople to work on the project, given that the cost of living in Victoria is one of the highest in Canada.

For Coleman, the project’s final phase may include a hotel or condo hotel, which if close to the international marina, could provide a significant economic benefit.