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This is a joint partnership between the City of Vancouver and the Vancouver School Board. Construction first began in Spring 2022, replacing the surface parking lot immediately adjacent to Coal Harbour Community Centre at the northern foot of Broughton Street.

The first three levels of the building provide a 43,000 sq. ft. space for Seaside Elementary School, accommodating 317 students. This facility includes a school gymnasium and library, with students also set to use an upgraded playground and open grassy field on the rooftop of the community centre.

The building’s fourth level will be a 9,600 sq. ft. childcare facility for 64 kids, plus an outdoor play space on the lower rooftop, while the remaining six levels in the upper half of the building will provide 60 social housing units. The childcare facility and social housing units are also expected to be ready next year. Henriquez Partners Architects is the project’s design firm.

In preparation for the school’s opening, the Vancouver School Board last week approved a rejigging of downtown Vancouver’s catchment boundaries for elementary schools.

Previously, the catchment for both Lord Roberts Elementary School and the Lord Roberts Annex Elementary School satellite building at Nelson Park spanned the West End and Coal Harbour neighbourhoods. Now, this catchment is split in half, with Coal Harbour and the northernmost areas of the West End neighbourhood under the newly created Seaside Elementary School catchment. As well, the new school also takes over a small portion of the previous northwest corner of the catchment for Crosstown Elementary School.

According to VSB, the reconfiguration of the boundaries balances each school’s capacity, walkability, and “equitable access” for families in downtown Vancouver. These new boundaries will take effect in September 2026.

“We continue to see enrolment pressures in the downtown area,” said Jessie Gresley-Jones, executive director of facilities for VSB, in a statement.

“Updating these boundaries supports long-term planning and helps ensure students can attend a neighbourhood school close to home both now and in the years ahead.”

There will be a bit of “musical chairs” with school capacity and where students study over the coming years.

Upon the opening of Seaside Elementary School, Lord Roberts Annex School will close to enable its demolition for BC Hydro’s new underground substation project at Nelson Park. Students enrolled at Lord Roberts Annex School will be temporarily relocated to Seaside Elementary School.

After the substation reaches completion, construction will begin on a new replacement building for Lord Roberts Elementary School at Nelson Park, with this replacement anticipated to reach completion in 2032. Following the completion of this new replacement building, Seaside Elementary School’s entire capacity will become a net gain for the VSB system.

For decades, there has been a need for new and expanded school capacity in and around the downtown Vancouver peninsula and False Creek areas due to immense residential developments drawing in families with children.

According to VSB, for the current 2025/2026 school year, Elsie Roy, Crosstown, and Lord Roberts elementary schools are operating at 100 per cent capacity or greater.

Seaside Elementary School is downtown Vancouver’s first new public school since the 2017 opening of Crosstown Elementary School east of Rogers Arena.

There are also plans to build a new elementary school in the Olympic Village, with a capacity for up to 630 students and a childcare facility for 60 kids. This four-storey, 65,000 sq. ft. next to the Southeast False Creek seawall has been provided with a $150-million budget from the provincial government. VSB is aiming to begin construction in 2027 for a completion and opening in 2029.

Additionally, VSB and the City are in the early stages of planning a new mixed-use complex at the West End’s civic hub — a new and expanded King George Secondary School and West End Community Centre and library, and a new replacement firehall.

BC Hydro’s major substation project under Nelson Park is also a response to the growing need for more electrical capacity to accommodate future building developments, and to replace the aging Dal Grauer substation, located immediately adjacent to Scotiabank Theatre on Burrard Street. The electric utility previously reached an agreement with VSB to provide at least $73 million towards the cost of building the new elementary schools in Coal Harbour and Nelson Park.

In early 2022, the municipal government approved a $71-million contract to Haebler Construction Projects for building the Coal Harbour mixed-use building, including $28.4 million for the school component, $9.9 million for the childcare facility component, and $32.3 million for the social housing component.

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