Change is officially on the horizon for what has become known as the Capital Iron Lands development in downtown Victoria. City councillors voted unanimously on Thursday to approve the third reading of the project. “There is a really a high level of satisfaction and agreement that this is the right direction for this neighbourhood,” said Marianne Alto, Victoria’s mayor. It’s a massive project spanning from the shores of the Inner Harbour through to Government Street. Jon Stovell is the president and CEO of Reliance Properties, the company that owns and will develop the lands. “It’s been approved for a mixed-use master plan development that’s going to have up to 14 buildings,” said Stovell. Consisting of roughly 900,000 square feet of development space—including 650 units of housing, both strata and rental—it will also come with retail, light industrial and marine industrial space. Three heritage buildings sitting on the nearly three-hectare property, including the Capital Iron building, will not be touched. “We could see an initial development starting here within about a year,” said Stovell. Reliance Properties says the complete build-out could take up to seven to 10 years. “I would say the total value of the development is somewhere between $800 million and $1 billion,” Stovell said. Victoria’s mayor says the plan for the project fits with council’s vision for the neighbourhood. “You’ll see some water access for the public, some water access for industry and additional industrial buildings for new industry as well as supporting what’s there,” said Alto. The first leg of construction will begin in the parking lot of the Capital Iron building, making way for a new anchor tenant: the Greater Victoria Art Gallery. The gallery has been looking for a new home for years, as it has outgrown its current location in Victoria’s Fairfield neighbourhood. Alto described the new gallery building as “one of the showpieces” of the project. “Now that they have the certainty that this project is moving forward and that they are a component of it, they can now go out and launch a fairly significant capital campaign to ensure they can actually build it,” said Alto. Next, Reliance Properties and the city will need to agree on a master development plan, which will need to come back to council for final adoption. After Thursday’s vote, all parties involved believe that shovels should be hitting the ground within the year, beginning a dramatic transformation of a corner of downtown Victoria that has been ripe for redevelopment for years.
