Larwill Park, the future home of the Vancouver Art Gallery.

Altogether, about 900,000 square feet of floor area will be added to the building, which will give the overall project a floor area exceeding 1.5 million square feet.

Street view south on Homer Street

Street view of the corner of Hamilton and West Georgia streets. Image: Musson Cattell Mackey Partnership / Bentall Kennedy

Parking spaces will also be found within the completed redevelopment’s lower three levels. There are currently two lower levels, but the lowermost level will be excavated to create additional space for a third level of underground parking.

floor area. Instead, the space will be converted into a plaza with patio space and a street level entry into building’s retail.

Future West Georgia Street plaza and main entry into the post office building redevelopment.

“So the proposal is moving in this direction, to hopefully secure it as a heritage site.”

Project proponents considered options other than retaining the post office building structure. One option would demolish the entire city block structure to enable a completely new purpose-built redevelopment while the other option – a hybrid heritage retention plan – would retain the historic West Georgia Street facade and demolish the northernmost two-thirds of the structure, but these options were not economically nor environmentally feasible.

Some structural changes to the building, such as the reinforcement of support columns, will be necessary to support new parking levels and the towers that emerge from the existing rooftop.

million.

Diagram model of the fourth floor showing retail (orange).