Construction is about to begin on the first of five condo towers in a $350-million project in the troubled Whalley area of Surrey.

Future residents of Infinity at Central City participated in a ground-breaking ceremony last week on a seven-acre plot next to the King George SkyTrain station.

The land at King George Highway and Old Yale Road is now a vacant lot. By 2007, if all goes according to plan, it will be Surrey's largest-ever residential and commercial development.

Infinity will house approximately 1,400 units and 100,000 sq. ft. of retail space, including a Starbucks coffee shop, a grocery store, doctor and dentist offices and a shoe store.

Illustration courtesy Peak Communicators Ltd.
Due to its price, the first Infinity tower - set to go up in downtown Surrey - sold out in one day.

"(The site) will be under full excavation as we start the summer," says John Kinney, vice-president of Jung Dev-elopment, a subsidiary of Jung Ventures Ltd., which is developing the property. "Probably the first concrete is going to be poured in the late summer, early fall."

Surrey city council is in the final stages of granting final approval to the project, which is expected to start in the next few weeks. The builder has already begun preliminary work, pending council's go-ahead.

The initial structure is going to be three levels of underground parking. "And then we come above grade with the first level, which is some retail and then the amenities and main lobbies," says Kinney. "Then we get to the podium and the tower of Infinity 1 and we carry on - on a floor-by-floor basis. We'll be pouring one floor a week, which is fairly typical of builders.”

The first tower will contain 345 units, while the second and third towers will each have 349.

Designs on the fourth and fifth buildings are not yet complete, but Kinney says they likely will contain a combined total of 400 to 500 units in the two structures.

"The second and third towers, all going well, should start in the late fall of this year - November - and the third tower will follow in the early spring (of 2006)," he adds.

The challenges will be to find enough labourers and managing the costs of materials, which have been rising steadily in recent months. Environmental approvals have already been granted, but Surrey city council must still issue building permits.

Surrey Coun. Barbara Steele, who was serving as deputy mayor during the ground-breaking ceremony, says Infinity at Central City is the most important new development since she was elected in 1998.

"It's going to build up the whole of the city centre," says Steele. "It's exactly what we wanted. The city needed a higher density and it needed this type of development and this (project) has kick-started it. Whalley city centre is now on the way. It's a monumental decision."

The site has sat vacant for 18 years, says Steele. Spokesmen for the project have characterized it as a gentrification of Whalley, an area that has become known for crime and drug addicts.

That reputation hit home in the May provincial election as candidates, including Steele, who ran unsuccessfully for the Liberals, debated whether a safe-injection site should be be installed in the area.

Steele agrees that Infinity will help to clean up the neighbourhood.

"It's a big start toward getting the city centre as we want it, and not have the reputation that it's had for so long," she says.

Infinity will benefit from the King George SkyTrain station, near the newly occupied Central City complex, which contains a Simon Fraser University satellite campus and is next to another SkyTrain station.

The first tower sold out in one day and a VIP day and public offering will soon be held on the second tower. The project's marketer, Jason Craik of McNeil and Craik Real Estate Solutions Inc., known as MAC Real Estate Solutions, says price is driving the interest.

Craik says Jung has benefitted from lower land costs and passed that advantage on to buyers. People who want, but can't afford, to live in Vancouver still have access to the entire Lower Mainland via SkyTrain, he says.

One-bedroom condos start at $139,900 while two-bedroom units sell for $180,000. The top price, also for a two-bedroom, is just over $300,000 - not including the fourth and fifth towers.

"That's 36 storeys in the air, so the views are just amazing," says Craik. "A comparable unit in downtown Vancouver would cost you close to $1 million.”