Revitalization to transform Whalley into new city centre
Posted: Mar 07 2011 Topic:
You’ll see some huge changes in the next three to five years’
A string of old low-rise shops on Surrey’s 104th Avenue sits shuttered, waiting for the wrecking ball. Across the lane, work continues on a gleaming, yacht-like glass-and-concrete library complex.
Beyond, the glass-fronted Simon Fraser University glints in the sun. Nearby, youth loiter around the Surrey Central SkyTrain station.
Welcome to Whalley — Surrey’s least desirable neighbourhood — soon to be transformed into a new city centre.
It’s been joked about, ridiculed and even dubbed the bane of Surrey’s existence. Past attempts to clean up the neighbourhood through police programs have had marginal success.
But the revitalization is finally starting to take shape.
In the next decade or two, this much-maligned neighbourhood is expected to be transformed into the second downtown core for Metro Vancouver — a vibrant, walkable Yaletown south of the Fraser, with eclectic shops, funky eateries and entertainment amenities to serve the 65,000 residents and 39,000 people expected to be working in the city centre by 2031.
Highrises and office towers are already springing up around the three SkyTrain stations. Young people swarm the SFU campus. The $36-million library is the first of several civic offices — including a new city hall and school-board precinct — earmarked for the area, which will see high-density growth stretch from Surrey Memorial Hospital to an RCMP E-Division on Fraser Highway.