Brentwood Town Centre has been under construction for seven years now. The project that means to make The Amazing Brentwood much more state of the art and rival the size of other city centers in Vancouver and Burnaby. The four-phase plan hatched and is underway with no set completion date yet. But before you learn all about what is happening to Brentwood right now, it is time to take a step back and see what else the mall has been through. This is not the first expansion, and probably will not be the last. So let’s go back to the beginning.
Image from Miss604
A long time ago (close to sixty years now) Brentwood shopping center was completed and opened to the public in August 1961. The project took two years to complete, beginning with the rezoning of properties in 1959, and was expected to become the largest proposed shopping center in British Columbia at the time of its opening.
The mall was the first in Burnaby and had main attractions such as; Eaton’s, Canada’s largest department store chain founded in Toronto in 1869, but ending in bankruptcy in 1999. Loblaw’s Supermarket, which was the first in British Columbia and the largest in its chain. Loblaw Companies would later go to create the Real Canadian Superstore in 1979. And Zellers, a Canadian discount department retail store founded in 1931, after it was acquired by the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1978, and then in the 2010s after many deals and lease acquisitions with American’s retail chain Target, Zellers closed down in March 2013 due to lack of profitability. Among those three giants at the time, there were upwards of sixty other stores at Brentwood when it opened.
Image from Wikipedia
Almost seven years after the mall opened, in June 1968, Canada’s Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau visited Brentwood Town Center with a crown of 2500 people who were all greeted with bands including Canadian rock group Tomorrow’s Eyes.
In the early 1970s, Brentwood Mall was renovated and expanded from the open-air strip mall which it previously was to an enclosed-style mall. The next major expansion took place in the years 1988 and 1989 and took ten months to complete. The mall received a two-story building with a food court and more stores including the return of the Zellers that previously closed down in the early 1980s and now had two whole storeys. This renovation gave the mall its white domes that you would see when you look at it from above or when you look up from the food court.
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On August 31st, 2002, Brentwood got access to the Millennium Line. The SkyTrain first began construction on March 1st, 1982, and opened to the public on December 11th, 1985. The SkyTrain made big expansions in 1989, 1990, and 1994 before coming to Brentwood in 2002, then continued expanding afterward as well with the latest expansion in 2016. The SkyTrain was not the only mode of transport to hit Brentwood Mall though. A bus loop was established as well and the mall became a center for transportation in Burnaby.
Five years later in 2007, another renovation came and an expansion on the washrooms arrived as well. This washroom expansion was no small feat either, because the next year in 2008, the mall’s washrooms were awarded the “Powder Room Seal of Approval” for being one of the best washrooms in all of Canada.
After that, the mall kept on expanding. By 2010 it had 125 stores and services available. On November 12th, 2013, the mall began plans for another expansion, one that is still carrying on to this day. This plan included a movie theatre in the mall, as well as two 60-storey towers which would be some of the tallest in Burnaby and rival the heights of skyscrapers in Vancouver. The first seven storeys will be for commercial use and the remaining 53 for residents. This was all part of phase one of the four-phase twenty-year plan. The first phase also includes eight acres of new parking and a one-acre plaza facing the SkyTrain, which will be joined with the entrance for seamless transitions to transport for pedestrians.
Image from Burnaby Now
Phase one was set for a completion date in late 2017, which sadly did not happen. There were delays that lead to the opening to be more of a late 2019 opening, with part of the site still under construction. Right now, in late 2020, the plaza is open and running with still a few things being built and refurbished here and there.
Phase two of the project includes the new community center at the mall. Phase three is a 51-storey apartment tower with 526 apartments. It will be placed on the corner of Alpha Avenue and Lougheed highway and is meant to complement the first two towers. The building is currently under construction, growing taller by the day to try and reach its two already complete brothers. Along with this new tower, phase three aims to make living at Brentwood Town Centre grand. SOLO District wants a bold hotel-inspired arrival area, and garden plots and greenery to keep residents in touch with nature. “Every time you return to the building, you’re greeted with a grand sense of place. Whether you’re coming or going, you’ll know you’re home.”
Image from Vancouver Sun
Phase four has little to no information about what is planned yet. Another tower is supposed to be installed, and the Appia Development and Chris Dikeakos Architects Inc. are asking the City of Burnaby to increase the height of the building from 48 storeys to 52. This is in order to increase the office podium from four storeys to 13 storeys.
The four phases, if going by the original plan, would be completed by 2033. However, phase one already fell behind schedule even before COVID-19. The road is long, but the results are now showing with the mall open and operating. If COVID-19 does not slow the project too much and no other delays happen, all four phases should be complete sometime in the mid-2030s. There is no way to know for certain, but the future is looking promising.