The development company that owns the Gibsons Park Plaza is now looking to develop 15 acres next door.
The Sunshine Coast Regional District (SCRD) planning department received a development permit application last week for two lots west of the IGA mall, with one of the buildings spanning over 100,000 sq. ft. "At the moment we're in that initial planning stage, we do have an application in but we do not have any tenants as of yet," Wesbild Holdings Ltd. community relations manager Jennifer Derbyshire said in a phone interview Thursday. "We don't have any specific tenants in mind at the moment."
A land title search showed Gibsons Real Estate Holdings Ltd. owns the existing mall property. A company search lists its directors, including the president of Wesbild Holdings Ltd. and chair of Inwest Investments Ltd.
Wesbild has developed properties in western Canada and the Pacific Northwest of the U.S., including residential developments, hotels, golf courses and shopping centres. One of Wesbild's developments was the planned community of Westwood Plateau in Coquitlam, with a 27-hole golf course, two restaurants, a teaching academy and a 35,000 sq. ft. clubhouse. Inwest Investments' chairman is the founder of Future Shop, which was recently sold to Best Buy, according to a news release on Inwest's website. Spokespeople at Inwest's Seattle office were unavailable Thursday due to the American Thanksgiving holiday.
The company's application to the SCRD required the current property owners' permission. A land title and company search on the five-acre property beside the mall showed the numbered company has three local directors and one director from Coquitlam.
The 10-acre lot beside it has been listed for sale on the real estate market.
The two lots are zoned commercial and light industrial. The application proposes to reconfigure the five-acre and 10-acre property lines into one property, SCRD director for Area E (Elphinstone) Lorne Lewis said.
The application would be referred to Gibsons council and likely Sechelt council because of the proposed building's size, Lewis said. "Once you get one that's over 100,000 sq. ft., that's fairly unusual," he said. The IGA mall in Elphinstone borders the Town of Gibsons boundaries. The Town has a bylaw capping building sizes, which this proposed building would exceed. The Area E official community plan is in the process of being redone, which would likely include building size criteria, Lewis said. "This was put into what was considered to be an area that was going to allow for commercial use for the next couple decades and that's why it was put into that zone," Lewis said, adding there would still be a fairly marked line between the agricultural land reserve land in Elphinstone and commercial development. He confirmed the applicants also own the IGA mall.
Conceptually, at least one of the two proposed buildings could be used as a restaurant, according to SCRD planner Greg Gebka, but the applicants have not yet submitted details of the properties' uses.
Gebka emphasized the application is still in the very preliminary stages. "Our focus will be on the form, size and appearance of buildings and structures and provision of landscaping and things that relate to the form and character of the site," Gebka explained. The application is expected to go to the Area E area planning commission in the new year.
