UPDATED: A brownfield development lot in Vancouver’s Strathcona neighbourhood is to be the future home of the largest purpose-built Tesla service facility in North America.
Vancouver-based developer, real estate and property management company Beedie will lead the project, which will create a two-storey, 120,000-square-foot flagship Tesla Centre facility at 950 Raymur Ave. It will include a wide range of operations from servicing, vehicle preparation and delivery, to a showroom which will be open to the public.
It will be situated at the edge of an extensive industrial and commercial district, across the road from Strathcona Park and adjacent to the Strathcona residential community.
“We have often collaborated with innovative companies on unique, built-to-suit projects and we look forward to working closely with Tesla and the local community in the coming years,” Ryan Beedie, the president of Beedie, said in Monday’s announcement.
“At Beedie we are committed to building legacies for our vibrant communities, so the opportunity to support the transition to electric vehicles through this partnership with Tesla is exciting.”
The facility will be Tesla’s most expansive service centre and offer the largest capacity in Western Canada.
The service and repair area will comprise about 63,000 square feet of the facility, with about 15,400 square feet dedicated to office and staff uses, a Beedie spokesperson told RENX in an exchange of emails.
Vancouver a leader in EV adoption
Locating the facility in Vancouver is no coincidence. The city has one of Canada’s highest electric vehicle adoption rates and British Columbia tops Quebec as the “EV capital of Canada” the companies state in the announcement.
“We are pleased to have partnered with Beedie to build our future flagship British Columbia location in the heart of Vancouver,” said Fereshteh Zeineddin, Tesla’s director of vehicle sales and service in Canada.
"With this new facility we look to better serve our Vancouver-area customers and further support electric vehicle adoption in the province.”
The site is currently vacant and will be remediated by Beedie. The current zoning allows for this type of usage, which will speed up the final approvals process.
Beedie is expected to begin construction in the first quarter of 2024 with an estimated completion of early 2026.
It acquired the 1.56-acre site in August of 2022 from Sherwin-Williams Canada for $19.3 million as a development land transaction, according to data in Avison Young’s fall 2022 Vancouver industrial overview.
At almost $12.4 million per acre, that made it one of the most valuable per-acre industrial land deals in the city in 2022.
EDITOR'S NOTE: RENX updated this article after it was published, to include additional information provided by a Beedie spokesperson.