Vancouver-based developer Ginn Group has submitted a preliminary application for a commercial and residential subdivision in east Vancouver called Tapestry Square, located near the Walmart Supercenter toward the eastern end of the Fourth Plain corridor.
Ginn Group is partnering with the Vancouver Housing Authority and Boys & Girls Clubs of Southwest Washington for the project, which would include two, three-story affordable housing apartment buildings and a new 20,000-square-foot Boys & Girls Clubs facility.
Ginn Group CEO Patrick Ginn serves as board president for the Boys & Girls Clubs of Southwest Washington. He said the project was partially inspired by the Boys & Girls O.K. 2 Clubhouse in the Vancouver Heights neighborhood, which opened in 2016.
He admired the concept of a community centered on a Boys & Girls clubhouse, Ginn said, and wanted to try to build something similar for a future project.
The east Vancouver site offered the right balance of developable land area and proximity to transit and commercial infrastructure along the Fourth Plain corridor, he said.
The project would be located on an undeveloped 10.9-acre site on the west side of Northeast 143rd Avenue near the intersection with Northeast 63rd Street, a short distance south of Fourth Plain Boulevard. The surrounding area is rapidly developing; the Walmart opened in 2015 and a Goodwill store to the north of the Tapestry site debuted in 2018.
Other commercial buildings have sprung up in the past few years at the intersection of Fourth Plain and 143rd Avenue. Vancouver-based snack and drink distributor Craig Stein Beverage and specialized glassmaker Peninsula Glass both have plans to build new facilities nearby.
“That general area along Fourth Plain has really transformed over the last five years or so,” Ginn said.
The clubhouse would be located at the northeast corner of the Tapestry site, and the affordable units would extend down the eastern side of 143rd Avenue, according to the pre-application narrative.
The rest of the site would be developed with a mix of attached “family apartment style” townhomes with garages, townhomes without garages, three-story “walk-up” apartment buildings and three-story higher-density apartment buildings. The townhomes would be three- or four-bedroom units, the walk-up apartments would range from one- to three-bedroom units and the high-density apartments would be one- or two-bedroom units.
The overall subdivision is expected to have approximately 270 dwelling units, roughly 84 of which would be affordable apartment units with the rest being market-rate. The packet also mentions a central community park and “thoughtfully located pocket green spaces and plazas throughout.”
A site diagram included in the packet shows a central parking lot loop with two connections to 143rd Avenue. The overall development would have about 438 parking spaces, about 50 of which would be for the Boys & Girls Clubs facility.
The site was originally subject to a development agreement in 2003, which was later superseded by an amended agreement in 2014, according to the pre-application narrative. Ginn wasn’t involved in those discussions, but the proposed development fits within the standards prescribed in the 2014 document, including a 30-foot buffer along the western side, which abuts an existing residential neighborhood.
Ginn said his goal would be to start preparing the site in about a year so that construction could begin next summer.
“If we could be moving dirt and developing it this time next year that would be great, that would be the goal,” he said.
