Vancouver, March 31, 2025 – Harrison Street Asset Management (“HSAM”), a leading global alternative investment manager, and PC Urban Properties Corp. (“PC Urban”) today announced plans to develop a 507-unit purpose-built rental community at the southwest corner of West 13th Avenue and Willow, directly across from Vancouver General Hospital (“VGH”). The property has been designed specifically to provide attainable housing for healthcare workers at VGH. Believed to be the first purpose-built hospital workforce housing community in Vancouver and among the first of its kind in Canada, the project is expected to break ground in August 2026 and projected to deliver in June 2029.
PC Urban previously rezoned the site as a two-tower rental development with 354 homes. Following final adoption of the zoning bylaw, the opportunity arose to recast the site to prioritize healthcare workers. A new rezoning application was submitted in the fall and received unanimous City approval in February of this year, making it one of the largest projects expected to start construction in Vancouver this year.
The two-tower development is expected to include two 22-storey towers and an 11,000 square foot, two-storey extended-hours childcare facility – a significant benefit for medical and support staff who work shifts. The 507-unit community is projected to comprise 78 studios, 351 one-bedroom, and 78 two-bedroom homes, fully furnished with utilities and Wi-Fi included in the rent, with flexible lease options and curated amenities designed to support shift-based schedules. Through a nomination agreement with VGH, employees can receive priority access to housing, with units expected to be offered below comparable recently built product. Located less than 200 metres from the hospital, residents can expect a meaningful reduction in commute times, contributing to less stress and an improved quality of life. All homes will be aligned with Westside Area Development Cost Levy (DCL) affordable rates.
“A lack of attainable housing in downtown Vancouver led us to focus on creating a solution for VGH, its employees and other stakeholders. We continue to be focused on developing high quality housing underpinned by needs based elements and demographic trends,” said Jonathan Turnbull, Head of Canada at Harrison Street Asset Management. “We see a significant opportunity to expand this model across Canada, offering attainable housing solutions for healthcare workers while helping hospitals improve recruitment, retention and workforce stability.”
“This is a pioneering opportunity to build much needed, affordable rental housing for our healthcare workers. One of the biggest challenges we face in Vancouver is finding homes for people we rely on to look after us in the event of illness,” says Brent Sawchyn, CEO of PC Urban. “It is also validation for the Vancouver real estate industry where there are many project approvals, but few moving forward. This shows there’s enthusiasm for investing in alternative real estate strategies in our city.”
Recognizing the growth at VGH with the upcoming campus expansion and the resulting rise in workforce numbers, this development aims to ease ongoing housing challenges faced by the hospital’s 12,000+ employees, 35% of whom currently travel 2+ hours per day to commute . With less than 15% of first responders living within City limits, the project also aims to maximize the number of staff living nearby, likely enabling faster emergency response times and supporting long-term recruitment and retention.
“What makes this project particularly meaningful is that there wasn’t an existing policy framework for this kind of housing,” says Sawchyn. “City planning staff worked tirelessly to bring this project to reality, and Council were open-minded and collaborative in helping create a path forward; something that could serve as a potential precedent for future workforce housing in Vancouver.”
“Our role as a City is to create the conditions for new, innovative housing approaches to come forward,” said Dan Garrison, Director of Housing Policy for the City of Vancouver. “Enabling affordable housing near Vancouver General Hospital is a practical step that supports the hospital, healthcare workers, and the broader community. It also aligns with the Vancouver Official Development Plan by advancing our goal of building complete, connected neighbourhoods. We thank Harrison Street Asset Management and PC Urban for their leadership and creativity in creating what we believe to be a first-of-its-kind affordable housing solution in Vancouver.”
This investment further reflects HSAM’s growing presence in Canada and continued focus on needs-based alternative real estate strategies. To date, Harrison Street’s Canada Alternative Real Estate Fund, which targets investments in high quality senior living, student housing, medical office, life sciences, storage, digital assets and other sectors exhibiting needs-based demand drivers throughout Canada, has committed to more than $2.0 billion of transactions since launching in 2021.
About Harrison Street Asset Management
Harrison Street Asset Management is a leading global alternative investment management firm with over US$108 billion in assets under management through highly differentiated assets across real estate, infrastructure, and credit strategies. Headquartered in Chicago, Toronto and London with over 600 employees in offices across North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East, the firm offers innovative solutions across a variety of closed-end, open-end and specialized vehicles on behalf of 1,100+ institutional and over 300+ Registered Investment Advisors.1
1 HSAM data and descriptions of HSAM’s business are generally comprised of the aggregated data and business activities of investment advisors that are owned in whole or in part by HSAM. Assets under management (“AUM”) reflects the AUM for the investment advisory and asset management clients of such investment advisors and is inclusive of the regulatory AUM of such investment advisors that is reported in their respective Form ADVs.
About PC Urban:
Founded in 2009, PC Urban Properties is a Vancouver-based real estate development and investment company. The PC Urban team is a multidisciplinary group of dedicated individuals focused on maximizing unrealized potential for our clients, for our communities and for the properties we re-imagine. We have successfully developed and launched real estate projects across all asset classes – retail, office, industrial and multi-family. Our passion is to build spaces for people to live and spaces for people to work. PC Urban is active throughout Metro Vancouver, the Central Okanagan, and Southern Vancouver Island. PC Urban has developed over $3.5 billion of projects across all asset classes. We currently have 5.2 million square feet of space under development including 1.4 million square feet of office space and 1,200 rental apartment homes. www.pcurban.ca
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