McCarthy Properties, a homegrown Burnaby developer, is working on plans to build one of the Lower Mainland’s tallest towers in Metrotown, a neighbourhood the company sees as the city’s downtown core and the geographic heart of the region.
McCarthy has developed and owned commercial buildings in and around Burnaby for decades after its founder John Jambor immigrated to Burnaby (via Quebec) from Slovakia between the first and second world wars.
John McCarthy, vice-president with the company and the great grandson of Jambor, told RENX the firm is proposing a 72-storey tower at 4900-4940 Kingsway and 6446-6450 Nelson Avenue, across from the Metropolis shopping centre.
The building would have 469 homes including a mix of condos, and market and below-market rental homes. It would also include office, retail and community-oriented spaces. The building would include a distinctive12-storey terraced podium along Kingsway.
The homes in the massive tower would comprise 169 strata units, 170 market rental units, and 130 non-market rental units, with approximately 345,000 square feet of commercial space at its base, McCarthy said.
In all, the building is to contain over 850,000 square feet of space across the multiple uses.
Long history in the neighbourhood
Jambor initially intended to retire where he arrived in Burnaby in the 1950s but got refocused on the real estate industry. McCarthy said Jambor recognized Burnaby as the centre of the Lower Mainland, and Metrotown as the centre of Burnaby back then. The company still sees things that way.
The firm has a lengthy list of assets in the Lower Mainland, including medical office, industrial, office and retail space — most of it located in Burnaby.
“(We have) buildings that have been built through the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s that we still own and manage today,” McCarthy said. “Those were all built by us. We’ve continued to consolidate and assemble properties over the decades and now we’re at a point where some of those sites are ready for further development or redevelopment.”
McCarthy said the company’s office is located in Burnaby.
“It’s where I grew up, where my dad grew up. So, this is really our neighborhood,” he said.
For Metrotown to fully emerge as Burnaby’s downtown as the city intends, more signature projects are needed to solidify the neighbourhood. “We think that our project can kind of be that gateway into downtown (Burnaby),” he said. “It’s extremely accessible through transit and the other kinds of transportation.”
It seems local government felt that way too, as the municipality had shared plans in 2023 to relocate City Hall to Metrotown from a cluster of aging buildings at Deer Lake. It has since halted those plans amid public pushback.
Permitted density is creating critical mass in Metrotown
“Obviously, there is a lot of density that is allowed in the Metrotown area right across the street from us,” McCarthy said, noting Concord Pacific’s multi-tower Concord Metrotown redevelopment of the former Sears site at the mall.
Meanwhile, Anthem is moving toward construction of Citizen, a 66-storey mixed-use tower at 4663 Kingsway that will include 372 market condos and townhomes, 200 market rental units and 73 below-market rentals. It will also include 40,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor amenities and over 150,000 square feet of retail and office space above six levels of underground parking.
As for next steps on the McCarthy tower, the immediate focus is getting the site rezoned, McCarthy said. “We’re working on a timeline right now to try to get through all the rezoning of the site between now and June.”
Asked about the current status of the market and launching such a bold project amid economic and presale uncertainty, McCarthy said they don’t have any special insights.
“We don’t know anything that the market doesn’t know,” he said. “Right now, it’s a tough market, I think, particularly for pre-sale condos.
“We’ve planned this project over a number of years, so we’re carrying forward with our vision. It’s still a long road ahead before we’ll be able to deliver this project, so we plan to pick the right moment in time when the market is ready to respond to something like our project.”
