Back in the late summer of 2012, the City of Langley made a great do about Charleston Place. This was a proposed 15 storey, mixed-use building that was to be built on the corner of Industrial Avenue and 203rd Street. The City highlighted this project in all of its marketing martial for some time.
I was excited that a major, mixed-use project was coming to Downtown Langley though I did have some concerns. Because the City of Langley is a great value for both residential and commercial space, I wondered if the project would be financially viable. Some friends of mine that work on larger development projects told me that the project didn’t make financial sense.
In April 2013, the developer of Charleston Place setup a marketing office in Downtown Langley. Earlier this year, the marketing office shutdown and the project's website was changed to say “Charleston Place is on hold. Please check back at a later date.”
I wondered if this was it for Charleston Place.
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| Demolition work at the corner of Industrial Avenue and 203rd Street. Picture taken on July 30 in the later afternoon. |
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| Another view of the demolition of the old night club at Industrial Avenue and 203rd Street. |
Earlier this week, crews started demolishing the old night club at the corner of Industrial Avenue and 203rd Avenue. Is Charleston Place ready to re-launch, or is the land being cleared for a potentially different type of development?
Other developers have come to Langley proposing one project, but switched to another project later on. For example, a strip mall was proposed to be built at the corner of Glover and the Langley Bypass, but was changed to auto dealerships.
I will continue to monitor what is going on with the former Charleston Place site. Hopefully we don’t get another drive thru!
Hey Nathan,
ReplyDeleteCrazy to think Langley City could have had it’s first high rise almost 10 years ago, though I find it interesting that the bus loop played any part in the delay, and funny enough Translink is only now making the change due to Sky Train coming. The project that ended up going through is somewhat disappointing, now knowing it could have been something great. With that being said, I’m sure there have been plenty of other proposals in the past that have been proposed, and ended up completely different from the preliminary concept.