After a couple of weeks of showery weather that left behind puddles of evidence, the blue-sky long-range forecast for Prince George was just what the doctor ordered for developer Peter Wise.
Now his construction crew can get started, laying down the chalk lines and curbs to mark the foundation of a $30-million downtown apartment complex that will create 135 rental units next to city hall beside the Park House condominium development and daycare centre.
“It’s taken a couple of years to put it all together but we’re pretty excited to get it going now, nothing takes a short period of time when you’re putting a project like this together,” said Wise, president of Ador Properties.
“We’re starting right now and it will probably take us about 18 months.”
Park House phases 2 and 3 will include two five-storey buildings, one with 60 units, the other with 75 units, to be built on top of the 290-stall underground parkade that touched off a powderkeg of controversy when it was built in 2020. The parkade cost spiked from $12.6 million in 2018 to $34.1 million by the time it was finished in December 2020.
The cost overrun was attributed to the city taking on all the risks associated with construction to try to spur development of shops and restaurants in a revitalized downtown and taxpayers were stuck with the bill. Persistent problems with flooding delayed the project and pushed up the cost.
That blown budget led to new rules that cap spending approvals without council permission and the city enacted a whistleblower provision to encourage staff to report concerns about how municipal finances are being handled.
The new Park House apartments will be either bachelor suites or one-bedroom units. Wise said he predicts the public will like the pleasing esthetics of the two new buildings that will occupy the site along Sixth Avenue just west of Queensway.
“I think we’ve created a really nice look for the buildings," he said. “Recognizing there’s already a couple of buildings on-site we didn’t want to create something that will clash, but we always try to make it distinct. They’re going to be very high-end buildings and they’ll be finished nicely too.”
Aluminum cladding that resembles wood will be one of the exterior features, with no maintenance required, he said. The building’s open floor plan incorporates wood-look parallam beams and it will be built to the highest energy efficiencies with its heating/air condition systems, soundproof triple-glazed triple-paned windows and well-insulated roofs and walls.
“If I’m going to build something that people will want to live in, especially downtown, it should be really nice, and this building will be really nice,” said Wise. "They did a nice job on (Park House) so it just makes sense that we do something equal to or better."
The province, with its Housing Target Order under the Housing Supply Act, is targeting 1,803 new housing units to be built in Prince George over the next five years which represents 75 per cent of the 2,404 units it’s estimated the city will need to meet the demand.
The unobstructed views of Connaught Hill Park to the south, the McGregor Mountains to the east and the city to the west will also entice renters, Wise said.
Park House project site superintendent Peter Johnson, a former yacht builder from Maple Ridge, said the attention to detail and high quality in the building will be noticeable to tenants.
“I like the sheer beauty of the entire package. It’s going to be a really nice asset down here that's aesthetically beautiful. The interior of the buildings is going to be gorgeous,” said Johnson. “You will feel like you’re going into a very beautiful, well-known hotel lobby when you’re in the communal areas of this. It’s going to be very comfortable and easy to clean. I’ve never seen this level before, and I’m used to an upper standard."
The buildings will be energy efficient, the builders said.
“With going to the upper (building) codes that we’re going to work to, you’re literally going to be able to warm this place up with a candle, that’s how efficient it will be," Johnson said.
Enticing more people to live downtown is the goal of every city and Park House residents will be able to walk to most of the services they’ll need. Wise can’t wait to see the city’s Civic Core District Plan unfold to create a pedestrian mall that will include a new downtown arena that will be built next to the Prince George Conference and Civic Centre and the hotel developments already in place.
“If the core becomes rotten, everything dies, so the core is really important and we have to focus our energies on the core,” said Wise. “It’s a place where people want to spend money, buy a house, rent a house, start a business, go to a restaurant. So how do you make this a place where people will want to spend money?
“The only way to do that is to create a community, so we need a lot more homes to create a vibrancy and a sense of community. If you have a lot of people down here walking around, that creates a sense of safety. I know a lot of seniors that don’t want to come downtown because they feel unsafe. But we can make it more safe if there’s more people living here.”
Wise figures people will eventually forget the controversy that surrounded the parking structure finances once Park House is finished and it becomes a people place.
At any given time the construction site will employ 30-50 workers.
Curbs should be in place by next week and the prefabricated timber frame walls are being sourced locally from Lambert Built Ltd.
Wise said the first building should be finished by the summer of 2025 and expects the project, funded by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, to be complete by February or March 2026.
A year ago, Ador Properties opened the 42-unit Quebec Street House apartment complex across from the Canfor Leisure Pool that now serves as a B.C. Housing residence.
The developer also has the Live Well 60-unit high-end seniors apartment complex under construction at the north end of Ospika Boulevard and in October it will get started with the 100-unit Three Robins seniors apartments building on the west side of Foothills Boulevard between 5th and 15th Avenues.
