Real Estate Update in False Creek Flats

Vancouver’s St. Paul’s Hospital was originally established in 1894. Vancouver had only been incorporated for 8 years at the time, and the original four-storey, 25-bed wood-framed hospital was built for $28,000 – or about three-quarters of a million dollars when adjusted for inflation. Even in the early days of its operation, St. Paul’s was an important resource for patients in the city and surrounding region as it had its own X-ray machine in 1906 (shocking, I know) and a School of Nursing in 1907.

The original structure was thus replaced with a much more expansive hospital. Over time this campus would develop amid a bustling downtown core, with Providence Healthcare continuing to build new additions and annexes to increase the hospital’s capabilities. However, eventually the hospital ran out of space to expand further, and thus a new hospital was proposed.

To aid in building this new healthcare facility, Concord Pacific bought the original St. Paul’s Hospital land for $850 million with proceeds going towards building a new hospital.

The Future of Healthcare Comes to False Creek

The future of St. Paul’s Hospital required much collecting of feedback from residents, stakeholders and relevant municipal, provincial and federal government bodies. However, after years of this painstaking work, the new hospital was finally approved. Costing $2.2 billion, the new hospital began construction in 2021. Let’s take a look at what this new hospital will do and what it will mean for the emerging False Creek Flats community.

This project occupying a 7.4 hectare (18.4 acres) site is proposed to include:

• A new hospital and integrated health care campus
• Institutional, office, research, hotel, retail-service, and Indigenous cultural uses, along with limited rental housing for health care workers
• A range of building heights from approximately 24 metres (79 ft) to 61 metres (200 ft)
• A new road network through the site that would connect to existing adjacent streets
• A new public plaza and two child care facilities

Human-centric design considerations are being made too. This includes features which allow for natural light to permeate into the building, and allow for views of the outside world. The hospital is also looking to implement single-patient rooms with additional space for family and support persons to stay overnight. This can help with patient privacy and infection control.

Operating rooms are also getting an upgrade with the new hospital. By mounting more equipment on the ceiling, the operating rooms will become roomier and allow for better positioning of staff in providing care, says hospital staff who gave CTV a sneak peek.

Hopefully, in the future, we’ll have some robotics, in terms of surgery, as well, which is a really exciting, innovative thing.” – Josh Chipperfield, Clinical Lead.

The hospital is also going to have spaces for wellness, whether it is in the corporeal sense with outdoors and support facilities, or for spiritual wellness through sacred spaces, therapeutic roof gardens and a chapel.

Another aspect is wayfinding. While the old hospital has coloured lines on the floor guiding patients to most wards, offices or clinics in the campus, there’s going to be improvements given how much larger the new hospital will be. For example, designing a senior-friendly campus layout, or using digital wayfinding to allow easy navigation around the campus by taking advantage of state-of-the-art or emerging technologies.

Finally, the Audain Foundation made a $4-million donation for public art, incorporating Indigenous perspectives and motifs into the campus design.

What else is being added to the new St. Paul’s Hospital campus?

This hasn’t been promoted as much. Next to the new St. Paul’s Hospital, the Clinical Support and Research Centre (CSRC) will be built to provide additional resources to the hospital. So instead of taking up internal spaces for research and support purposes inside a hospital, this building will be a self-contained space, but it can be used by the Hospital as needed.

There are also mixed-use residential & office buildings being developed adjacent to the future St. Paul’s Hospital campus. Read more about about the forthcoming clinical research facilities at 456-495 Prior Street and Masimo’s new Vancouver office at 220 Prior Street.

What does this all mean for False Creek Flats?

It’s not even a surprise that this new hospital campus will have a significant impact on the area.

As the City of Vancouver has long expected the continued development of False Creek Flats to transition from an industrial/commercial zone to accommodate residential housing, this new hospital campus will give fresh impetus to speed up construction. The eventual removal of the Georgia and Dunsmuir viaducts will also hasten this transition. Per the City of Vancouver, the expectation is that over the next 30 years, the area will grow from 8,000 jobs to 30,000 jobs, bringing with it a lot more housing units, commercial spaces and public areas to support that swell of jobs.

Update: January 2023

The St. Paul’s Foundation has published an update on the current status of the new hospital construction, and what will happen in the year ahead.

• In January, PCL will start pouring the concrete floor (or ‘slab’) for the main floor. And from there, the building will start to take shape…with rebar and concrete walls and columns.
• By December, floors 2 through 7 will also appear. We’ll have to wait until 2024 before the hospital reaches its full 11-storey height  — equivalent to a 21-storey high-rise condo — ​but even with 7 storeys, it’s going to be an impressive sight.
• We’ll continue building new roads and installing underground utilities around the site too.

The new St. Paul’s Hospital is expected to open in 2027