A panoramic, blue-sky view of Surrey greeted guests invited to a "roof topping" ceremony at the Flamingo One tower Monday, July 8.
Tien Sher Group's 36-storey building stands on the landmark former site of the Flamingo hotel and bar, at Whalley Boulevard and 107A Street.
More residential towers are planned there, and the completion date for the sold-out Flamingo One is still a year away. The project groundbreaking was held in May 2022.
"It has been a long, long journey for me especially in this neighbourhood," development company president Charan Sethi told the hard hat-wearing crowd.
"Going back 16 years when we started buying land in here, the dream started from that day onward. I still have a sketch and a rendering in my office dating back to 2005 when we actually started sketching things out, just to remind me where we come from, where we are."
Sethi said he "could thank every single person here for something, people who gave me encouragement in bad times, taught me a lot of stuff."
The old Flamingo Hotel went out with a bang in June 2019, when hundreds of people showed up for a “demolition event party.”
In November 2021, the Flamingo Block's first tower sold 365 homes in a $200-million-plus sales period over two days. The previous January, Surrey city council decided to allow Tien Sher to incorporate office space into a portion of its Flamingo Block development originally designated for residential units.
"We're moving fast and forward," Sethi said, "and our future plans are basically two towers next to it where Flamingo Hotel used to be, and then another tower where the liquor store is now. We're still trying to make up our mind whether we're gonna do a mega-tower or two smaller towers. So that'll come with the help of ITC (Group, construction company) to determine the feasibility of doing one or the other."
The Flamingo One tower is built with 24,000 cubic metres of concrete, according to Brad Burnett, executive vice-president of ITC Construction. "There are 577,000 square feet of concrete slab, which is almost 14 acres," he added.
Sethi said the construction project "lost a certain number of days to weather, and there were certain days lost where we were not be able to find concrete. And now we were in a little bit fearful that we might not get concrete again."
Real estate details are posted on whalleydistrict.com.
Elsewhere in Whalley, a similar "topping off" event is planned July 23 at PURA, advertised as "Surrey’s first mass timber housing project," by Adera Development. The project involves 136 one- and two-bedroom homes in a pair of six-storey buildings, at 13238 105 Ave.
"As the Province pushes to expand mass timber construction to speed up housing development and cut carbon emissions," an event invitation says, "the demand for eco-friendly mass timber buildings is growing. With increasing interest in mass timber, Adera leads in creating these homes, and on July 23rd, a CLT (cross-laminated panel) panel, a key component of Adera’s SmartWood™ method, at PURA will be placed."
