A Telus telephone exchange facility along the Victoria-Oak Bay border is following in the footsteps of the telecom’s Gordon Head exchange with a redevelopment proposal for purpose-built rentals, Citified has learned.

 

 

Telus Living and partner Ledcor Group via architectural firm RLA have submitted plans to the City of Victoria for Telus’ two-thirds of an acre lot along the 1900-block of Foul Bay Road at Bourchier Street in the Jubilee neighbourhood, opposite Oak Bay Rec Centre in Oak Bay.

 

The vision consists of a six-storey apartment block with just over 80 suites in studio through two-bedroom layouts. The building will feature an underground parkade for some 60 vehicles, and bicycle storage, plus indoor and outdoor amenity spaces for residents along the rear, or north side, of the property.

 

RLA’s design concept features a three-toned woodframe structure with wood-hued materials at-grade, and off-white or beige panelling on floors two-through-five, while the top floor is accented by dark vertical panelling and angled ceilings/rooftops.

 

The footprint is set back from both thoroughfares with green space, while ground floor units are street-accessible.

 

Currently, the telephone exchange is a non-descript two-storey concrete bunker flanked by surface parking stalls. 

 

Telus has invested heavily into the Capital Region’s real-estate industry with its development plays in recent years.

 

Telus Ocean, a ten-storey AAA-class office building currently under construction in downtown Victoria, will deliver the first large-scaled office building to Victoria’s city centre since the completion of 750 Pandora Avenue in 2018. Telus Ocean will comprise nearly 160,000 square feet of office and ground floor retail space, on Douglas Street at Humboldt Street.

 

 

Meanwhile, through its Telus Living division, Telus is pursuing a residential redevelopment of its Gordon Head telephone exchange on Feltham Road at Tyndall Avenue in Saanich’s Gordon Head neighbourhood.

 

The latter project consists of just under 100 rental apartments across a five-storey massing with underground parking.

 

Outside of the Capital, Telus has been involved in some of Canada’s largest real-estate plays of the 2000s, with significant investment into commercial office projects that include notable skyscrapers in Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto. Telus Living also has a residential development planned for Nanaimo. C

 

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