Squamish Oceanfront Development

Squamish Oceanfront Development is moving along!

Eleven years later, the sale is complete.

We spoke with Squamish Mayor, Patricia Heintzman, about the process so far, to which she said:

“11 years ago we had a professor from Queen’s University come and talk to us about waterfront development. We had just entered into a Charette process to essentially envision our recently acquired BC Rail land. He said “you’ll probably get it done in about 20 years”.  We all said “No, no. we’re going to be different”, and he said “if you do it in ten, you’re ahead of the curve”…Sure enough, its taken us 11 years to get to the point where we have an active developer ready to go”. 

After a decade of push-pull, she says “I think it’s about time we discovered we’re an oceanfront community, a seaside community, and really be able to take advantage of that”. 

The development will be unique, in that it goes beyond residential-only space, it will have light industrial and marine industrial areas, educational campuses, green spaces, employment lands, village centres and a hotel.

Although the build-out will likely take an additional 20 years, Mayor Heintzman says “The developer is looking to start building the road down to the park in the next couple of months. He is going to get his drawings in and I think they have an intention of getting going quite quickly”. 

All-in-all she says “it’s an exciting new frontier for Squamish to finally realize we are an oceanfront community”!