What could become the town of Sidney’s largest residential development in recent decades has been proposed overlooking the intersection of Beacon Avenue and the Pat Bay Highway.

 

 

Ontario-based Kothari Group is pursuing approvals for nearly 150 apartment units within a five-storey complex at 2180 Beacon Avenue at the northwest corner of the thoroughfare’s Highway 17 nexus west of the town centre.

 

Submitted plans from Victoria-based Joe Newell Architect depict a massing with primary frontage along the highway, with a portion spanning down Beacon Avenue. Top floor suites will feature over-height ceilings, while ground level floorplans will include exterior terraces.

 

Residences will range from one-bedroom homes sized at just over 600 square feet to three-bedroom floorplans in the range of 1,200 square feet. An approximately 1,200 square foot amenity space will be situated along the ground floor.

 

Parking will be in the form of an underground parkade and surface stalls. 

 

Kothari’s project is the largest single-building residential proposal to emerge in the Saanich Peninsula town in recent history, with 50 more units than the Oceanna mid-rise in downtown Sidney recently completed between Second and Third streets at Sidney Avenue.

 

Meanwhile, further west along Beacon Avenue, York Realty of Edmonton is building a $65 million, 115,000 square foot distribution centre for Amazon at Galaran Road on Victoria International Airport lands managed by the Victoria Airport Authority (VAA). The investment will encompass seven-acres and rise to two levels.

 

In 2016 the VAA and the Town of Sidney approved a nearly 100,000 square foot retail centre for a parcel on airport lands south of the York development and the Kothari proposal between Stirling Way and Highway 17. Known as Sidney Crossing, the plaza failed to materialize when proponent Omicron pulled the plug in 2018 due to construction costs and infrastructure requirements (which would have yielded a pedestrian overpass across Highway 17 and a re-aligned Stirling Way connecting with Galaran Road).

 

At the time, a competing retail centre nearby, known as Sandown Park, proceeded to its first phase of construction in neighbouring North Saanich and awaits future phases.

 

Elsewhere on the Saanich Peninsula developer Starlight is holding short for Central Saanich’s decision on a proposal to build 235-units of rental housing at the Marigold Lands on Lochside Drive near Mount Newton Cross Road. The project, if approved, would deliver nearly half of the district’s new rental housing unit target through 2025. Central Saanich council postponed a decision on Starlight's development following a January 10th public hearing.

 

At the opposite side of Central Saanich, however, an application that envisioned 300-units of seniors and workforce rentals on West Saanich Road at Keating Cross Road near the community of Brentwood Bay has been pulled due to the property’s location outside of the urban containment boundary, according to the proponent. Three buildings were planned with a variety of unit types for workers, families and individuals in need of age-in-place housing. C

 

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