44-storey hotel and rental housing tower planned near King George SkyTrain station

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This development site at the southeast corner of the intersection of 97a Avenue and 136A Street is currently occupied by a single-family dwelling and a two-storey commercial building.

RBI Group intends to achieve a 479-ft-tall, 44-storey tower, containing hotel uses between the ground level and 21st level and secured purpose-built market rental housing between the 23rd level and 43rd level.

There will be a total of 266 hotel guest rooms, along with a sizeable hotel restaurant on the ground level and hotel lounge uses for nearly the entire second level.

Levels 22 and 23 will be entirely used as shared indoor and outdoor amenity spaces for rental residents, with both levels visually defined by a prominent mid-tower white frame and recess breaks for the wrap-around covered outdoor amenity patio areas. Directly above these amenity floors, there will be 180 market rental homes, with a unit size mix of 46 studio units, 74 one-bedroom units, 54 two-bedroom units, and six three-bedroom units.

Six underground levels will accommodate 133 vehicle parking stalls.

The total building floor area will reach nearly 272,000 sq. ft., establishing a floor area ratio density of a floor area that is 18.9 times larger than the size of the 14,358 sq. ft. lot. The project is jointly designed by DF Architecture and Group 161.

“Although the proposed density on the subject site is higher than that prescribed in the OCP and the City Centre Plan, the proposed mixed-use tower supports the vision of the Medical District by providing convenient hotel and rental accommodation for staff, patrons and visitors to the Medical District,” states City staff in their report endorsing the project, adding that it “meets the intent of the Employment designation in the City Centre Plan by providing employment uses and residential rental units (secured with a Housing Agreement) in proximity to SkyTrain and other downtown amenities.”

With a sustained downturn in office and strata market condominium demand, developers are increasingly turning to rental housing and hotel uses — coupled with increased density through added height options — to improve the financial and economic viability of their projects.

Moreover, the region faces a growing shortage of hotel room supply, including increasing demand for more accommodation options near Surrey Memorial Hospital.

This is the second hotel project for the area; immediately to the east, earlier in 2025, Lark Group and Aquilini Group completed SHDT’s City Centre 4 project as a 25-storey tower — anchored by 189 hotel guest suites under Hilton’s Homewood Suites long-term stay brand. The hotel guest rooms will be situated within the tower’s upper levels, while the lower levels will be dedicated as space for Western Community College’s Surrey campus expansion and a Stong’s Market. The hotel will open in Spring 2026, while the grocery store opened in October 2025.

Lark Group is also currently in the process of constructing City Centre 5, situated immediately adjacent to City Centre 4 and RBI Group’s project site. Set to reach completion in 2028, City Centre 5 will be an 18-storey tower with about 500 beds of student housing and some academic space under a partnership with Western Community College.

Originally, the City Centre 4 and City Centre 5 buildings were envisioned as 100 per cent office space, but there were changes to the approaches due to the weak office market.

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