Victoria downtown proposal includes new home for art gallery

A years-long project to redevelop a swath of land on Victoria’s downtown harbourfront is looking for a greenlight from city council.

A years-long project to redevelop a swath of land on Victoria’s downtown harbourfront is looking for a greenlight, after making changes to the vision to satisfy council.

Reliance Properties has created a master plan to transform several properties along Store Street and a one block radius around Store, Chatham, Government and Discovery streets.

The company president says the design embraces the spirit of a past council request to create an arts and innovation district, but it needs council to sign off on a rezoning application and amendment to the Official Community Plan.

Victoria’s committee of the whole is set to discuss the application Thursday.

“We’re feeling positive and very much hope council moves this forward to public hearing as recommended by the staff,” says Reliance Properties president Jon Stovell.

The development firm has intentions to build hundreds of housing units, commercial space, public plaza, waterfront walkway and a new site for the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria over a total of 900,000 square feet. It’s changed the height of buildings down from as much as 20 storeys to as high as 14, which was one of the requests from council in May 2024.

According to a staff report to council, the new submission also shrinks the footprint of the public plaza area and waterfront pathway, takes out a water feature and reduces the amount of space allotted to rental units.

Reliance Properties says the first phase of construction would prioritize some of the public elements, including the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria.

“We really think moving downtown is the best choice for the art gallery,” says AGGV director and CEO Nancy Noble. “Location, location, location as they all say in real estate. Just having a gallery downtown will make it a lot more accessible for a lot more people.”

If the plan gets approval for public hearing, Reliance figures it’ll still take another five years to get the first phase built.

“Big master plan projects like this in an inner city are intrinsically complicated and slow,” says Stovell. “We just have to recognize that. Yeah, we’d always like it to be faster but there’s a certain pace that it seems to be able to go that you can’t really accelerate.”