Neighbours will get a peek at a new 154-unit Burnside Road complex that includes both rental units and supportive housing at an open house on Tuesday.
Victoria Cool Aid Society staff will be on hand from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. at 584 Burnside Rd. for tours of the five-storey development, called Crosstown. The event will include refreshments, live music and a cash-only arts market.
In February, the first rental tenants are expected to move into Crosstown, which will also include a daycare operated by Beacon Community Services on the second floor and a 6,000-square-foot community health centre operated by Cool Aid on the ground floor.
The building will have 25,000 square feet of commercial space, which Cool Aid aims to fill with health-care-related businesses. The group is looking to raise an additional $1.5 million to fully equip the future health centre and fund additional health services.
Crosstown also has a full-sized commercial kitchen with walk-in freezer, an industrial meat slicer and a 100-litre soup pot that Cool Aid food services manager Paul Stewart hopes will become the heart of the group’s food-making operations.
The organization provides daily meals for about 700 people across six supportive-housing sites in the capital region, currently prepared at the busy kitchen in Rock Bay Landing on Ellice Street.
The $50-million building was built next to the former Tally-Ho hotel with funding from B.C. Housing, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, the Ministry of Education and Childcare, the City of Victoria’s housing reserve fund, Infrastructure Canada, Fortis BC and Island Health.
The hotel, which was purchased by the province for $9.3 million and has been owned and operated as a Cool Aid supportive-housing facility since 2017, is being transferred back to the province as part of the financing conditions.
Cool Aid has submitted potential redevelopment plans for the Tally-Ho property but the fate of the site will be up to B.C. Housing. There are currently still 22 people living in the Tally-Ho.
Out of the 100 rental-housing units planned at Crosstown, which include everything from studios to three-bedrooms, 20 are being rented out at the shelter rate of $500.
Of the remaining 80 units, 30 will be rented at market rates while the rest will be subsidized rentals geared to 30 per cent of a renter’s monthly income.
The building’s studio and one-bedroom apartments will rent for $500 to $1,600 a month, according to Cool Aid’s website. Two-bedroom apartments will rent for $1,250 to $2,200, and three-bedroom apartments rent for $1,625 to $3,000 a month, the website said.
A short walk from the rental side of Crosstown, entry into the complex’s separate 54-unit supportive housing facility is controlled by an adjacent office.
Inside, the hallways are covered in protective siding and the cove joints slope into the walls. There are floor drains in every bathroom for flood protection.
Associate director of housing and shelters Angela Moran said the building’s supportive-housing section features “an incredible purpose-built design” tailored to the needs of people experiencing homelessness.
“You’ll have all the main amenities, which will be food services, the dining hall, an area outside for people to safely use and consume their substances,” said Moran during a recent media tour, pointing to a second-floor balcony accessible only to residents and staff of the facility.
Many of Cool Aid’s supportive-housing facilities have some form of outdoor space for people to use drugs, with drug users increasingly favouring inhalation over injection, she said.
In a follow-up statement, Cool Aid spokesperson Tracey Robertson said the organization is still working with partners to decide how to incorporate harm-reduction practices into Crosstown’s supportive-housing site and that no details — location or services provided — have been confirmed so far.
Most of those moving into Crosstown will be residents of the nearby Tally-Ho supportive-housing site as well as those on a list of people provided through B.C. Housing, not people “directly from the streets,” Robertson said.
Cool Aid is planning for supportive-housing residents to move in by March or April, pending discussions with B.C. Housing, Moran said, adding the organization has a 95 per cent occupancy rate at its supportive-housing sites.
Asked how Cool Aid is planning to balance the needs of rental-housing residents with those in supportive housing, Moran said the group is selecting rental tenants who are “trauma-informed” or might already be familiar with supportive housing.
Moran said Crosstown’s supportive-housing portion will have a no-guest policy and 24/7 staff monitoring access.
Cool Aid began putting supportive and affordable housing units together five years ago.
Residents were fiercely divided in 2017 over whether Mount Edwards Court, a former care home at 1002 Vancouver St., should be rezoned for a 78-unit supportive-housing facility for those aged 50 and up.
Officials and parents of Christ Church Cathedral School opposed the plan at the time, citing children’s safety and plummeting enrolments following several incidents involving drug users on school grounds.
In 2019, Cool Aid opened an additional 15 apartment homes in the building’s third floor as affordable rentals for seniors.
The school did not respond to a request for comment, but statistics provided to the provincial government showed enrolment at the school has steadily increased — save for a small dip during the pandemic — from 182 students in the 2016-17 school year to 237 students in 2023-2024.
The Chestnut, a Cool Aid-operated building with 51 affordable rental suites and 21 supportive-housing units at 210 Gorge Rd., was completed in late 2022.
Victoria Coun. Krista Loughton said she hasn’t heard any complaints about the five-storey building at the intersection of Gorge Road East and Carrol Street in the two years that she’s been Burnside-Gorge neighbourhood liaison.
There was opposition from some residents when the site was first proposed, but fears of increased petty crime and visible drug use proved to be unfounded, Loughton said.
“It is really well run, and it is purpose-built, and that makes all the difference in the world.”
At a meeting last week, some in the Burnside-Gorge Community Association were lamenting the fact that the coffee shop in the building wasn’t large enough to socialize in, she said.
“Some board members expressed that they wanted a place where you could go in, sit down, have a coffee and where residents from the Chestnut and the surrounding community could get to know each other,” Loughton said.
