City of Surrey staff are raising concerns about a major four-tower development proposed for a prominent Surrey City Centre site, asserting it falls well short of the amount of office and other non-residential space required under existing municipal government policies.
The “Civic District” project is a redevelopment of the 5.1-acre site of 10355 King George Blvd. — the Safeway that closed in 2021, located at the southwest corner of the intersection of 104 Avenue and King George Boulevard.
It is also immediately east of Surrey City Hall and SkyTrain’s Surrey Central Station and bus exchange.
Local developer Wesgroup Properties is proposing to build four high-rise, mixed-use towers between 40 storeys and 51 storeys.
Designed by architectural firm Arcadis, there would be 1.44 million sq. ft. of residential uses, 95,000 sq. ft. of commercial retail/restaurant uses, 108,000 sq. ft. of hotel uses, and almost 14,000 sq. ft. of childcare facility uses.
The ground level of the base podiums of all four towers would be dedicated to substantial retail/restaurant uses, which activate the extensive streetfronts of the complex.
Site of Civic District at 10355 King George Blvd., Surrey. (Google Maps)
2026 revised concept of Civic District at 10355 King George Blvd., Surrey. (Arcadis/Wesgroup Properties)
Existing condition:
Site of Civic District at 10355 King George Blvd., Surrey. (Google Maps)
Future condition:
2026 revised concept of Civic District at 10355 King George Blvd., Surrey. (Arcadis/Wesgroup Properties)
2026 revised concept of Civic District at 10355 King George Blvd., Surrey. (Arcadis/Wesgroup Properties)
Furthermore, the exterior facades of the second and third levels of the base podiums of all four towers would wrapped in large digital screens/electronic billboards, which would be Metro Vancouver’s largest digital signs of their kind — not entirely dissimilar to Times Square in New York City, Shinjuku in Tokyo, Piccadilly Circus in London, and Sankofa Square (Yonge-Dundas Square) in Toronto.
These digital screens conceal two above-ground vehicle parking levels, in addition to two to three underground levels of parking.
The first phase at the northeast quadrant of the site — at the prominent intersection corner — would feature a 42-storey tower with 470 strata market ownership condominium homes, a childcare facility, and a 33,000 sq. ft. replacement grocery store in the ground level.
The second phase at the southeast quadrant would be a 40-storey tower with 417 strata market ownership condominium homes and 32,000 sq. ft. of retail/restaurant space.
The third phase within the southwest quadrant of a 50-storey tower contains 407 strata market ownership condominium homes, an eight-storey hotel in the upper levels of the base podium, and 10,000 sq. ft. of ground-level retail/restaurant uses.
The fourth and final phase in the northwest quadrant of a 51-storey tower provides 408 strata market ownership condominium homes within the upper levels of the tower, 278 secured purpose-built market rental homes within the upper base podium levels, and over 21,000 sq. ft. of retail/restaurant uses on the ground level.
Altogether, this project generates 1,980 homes, including 1,702 strata market ownership condominium homes.
2026 revised concept of Civic District at 10355 King George Blvd., Surrey. (Arcadis/Wesgroup Properties)
2026 revised concept of Civic District at 10355 King George Blvd., Surrey. (Arcadis/Wesgroup Properties)
However, a City staff report to Surrey City Council states this overall proposal does not comply with the Official Community Plan (OCP) and Surrey City Centre Plan because it provides only about half of the required non-residential floor space and includes no office space at all. Across all four phases, the plan includes retail, childcare, and hotel space equal to about 1.0 floor area ratio (FAR), while the remaining 6.5 FAR would be residential. Since 2019, when the City first established the new Central Business District area within Surrey City Centre, mixed-use projects on such sites have been required to significant employment-focused space above ground-level retail/restaurant uses.
City staff warn approving a high-profile project in the heart of Surrey City Centre without office space could set a troubling precedent for other projects in the area that have already included an office component for their development concepts.
In those other mixed-use projects, developers have typically met their office requirements by dedicating a few levels above the ground-level retail/restaurant uses to office space. However, Wesgroup Properties’ Civic District proposal allocates the second and third levels of the base podium to vehicle parking, a move that could reduce construction costs and improve the project’s financial and economic viability by avoiding the need to excavate additional underground parking levels.
In addition to being within the Central Business District, the site also falls within the City’s newer overlapping Entertainment District designation for Surrey City Centre. The extensive retail and restaurant uses, accompanied by large digital screens, generally align with the kinds of uses and activations typically expected in an entertainment district. But City staff assert that “the extensive use of electronic billboards as a screening approach could also set a problematic precedent.”
2026 revised concept of Civic District at 10355 King George Blvd., Surrey. (Arcadis/Wesgroup Properties)
2026 revised concept of Civic District at 10355 King George Blvd., Surrey. (Arcadis/Wesgroup Properties)
2026 revised concept of Civic District at 10355 King George Blvd., Surrey. (Arcadis/Wesgroup Properties)
2026 revised concept of Civic District at 10355 King George Blvd., Surrey. (Arcadis/Wesgroup Properties)
Fundamentally, the report notes that proceeding with a development that has no office space and only half of the expected non-residential floor area for a site in the Central Business District “could undermine the City’s long-term objectives for establishing a high-intensity, vibrant and employment-oriented metropolitan core.”
“While proposals have been supported that fall short of the minimum non-residential floor area requirements, these proposals have generally come closer to achieving the target and have always included an office component,” state City staff.
“Given the site’s strategic location and as one of the few remaining large-scale redevelopment opportunities in the Civic Centre area, allowing insufficient office floor space at this location could signal reduced expectations for future developments in the City Centre.”
City staff are asking City Council to enable them to work with the developer to increase the commercial space component, which would be “consistent with the approach for other in-stream development applications within the Central BusinessDistrict Area 2 wherein the proposed non-residential uses include office floor space within the tower podium on substantially smaller sites.” They acknowledge that incorporating office space could be challenging given the current weak office space market conditions, but emphasized the importance of not setting precedent after requiring other projects to include such uses.
Although the developer has not proposed any office space, they have included a sizeable hotel use, which is strategically positioned in the tower closest to the SkyTrain station. Increasingly, projects across the region are pivoting to incorporate a hotel for at least some of the commercial uses, as an alternative to office space given the prevailing market conditions.
Altogether, the project calls for 1.7 million sq. ft. of total building floor area, establishing a floor area ratio (FAR) density of a floor area that is 7.5 times larger than the size of the lot.
This is a downsized concept of Wesgroup Properties’ vision of Civic District years earlier, when they floated a project with four mixed-use towers roughly between 50 storeys and 70 storeys with over 2,000 homes and hundreds of thousands of square feet of office, retail, and restaurant space. No hotel was included at the time.