It is currently a sandpit filled with construction equipment, but Beresford Street near Metrotown could be Burnaby's central "great street" within a decade.
Intracorp's two current Metrotown projects - the Metroplace and Silver developments - included ideas for the great street in its development proposals to the city, and city planning staff and the community development committee were enthusiastic about the concept, according to Intracorp president Don Forsgren.
"To the credit of the planning department, and the community development committee, they wanted to study that idea," he said. "They really embraced that idea and saw it as a great opportunity to create a special civic gathering space and a much more active street environment for the Metrotown community."
Intracorp worked with the owner of the former mini-storage company that previously blocked off Beresford Street, to change it from a collector street into what urban planners call a great street, Forsgren said.
Great streets provide more public space and interactive community areas in a neighbourhood.
Once the city gave the go-ahead for the Beresford plan, Forsgren said, Intracorp began planning the width of the sidewalks, the retail space adjacent to the street and areas where public art, landscaping and seating could be put in.
"It creates more of a vibrant environment with sidewalk cafés, introducing public art, more street furniture, places to gather, things like that," he explained. "We just thought there was the potential to do that with the amount of foot traffic around there, with the Metrotown SkyTrain station and the long-term vision of Burnaby to update the Metrotown community plan."
But Beresford Street isn't being set up to compete with Metropolis at Metrotown on a retail basis, he added.
"It's a different environment, with street orientation," Forsgren said. "It should be quite a vibrant community walking space."
Once the street is complete, it will be well set up for events such as farmers' markets and parades, he added.
"It's kind of in the heart of the city. It's the kind of street that would lend itself to those kinds of things," Forsgren said.
Excavation for Metroplace began last fall, and the project is expected to be completed by fall 2014, he said.
Construction began on the 46-storey development, at Telford Avenue and Beresford Street, on March 8.
Intracorp's next project, the 38storey development at Silver Avenue and Beresford Street, is expected to begin soon, with the sales office opening on April 8.
The project is expected to be completed by early 2015, according to Forsgren.
"It's kind of like a puzzle piece, every block needs to get developed over time," Forsgren said of the Beresford Street revitalization project.
Forsgren estimated that the Beresford revitalization project would likely be completed within five to 10 years.
www.twitter.com/janayafe
