The provincial government is starting to prepare sites to make way for the new Broadway Subway line.
The first buildings slated for removal are on the 100 block of East Broadway and 2500 block of Main Street for the future Mount Pleasant Station. The province said the work will have minimal impact on traffic and transit service. There will be limited street parking during the work.
All demolition work is anticipated to be completed by the end of April, in preparation for the start of station construction.
“When completed, the Broadway Subway will transform how people get around in Vancouver,” Transportation Minister Rob Fleming said Tuesday.
“I’m pleased to see site preparations get underway on this critical project.”
The Broadway Subway Project is budgeted to cost $2.83 billion. The funding comes from the Government of B.C., with contributions from the Government of Canada and the City of Vancouver.
The Broadway Subway is a 5.7-kilometre extension of the Millennium Line from VCC-Clark Station to Broadway and Arbutus in Vancouver.
The provincial and federal governments are still grappling with whether to support the line from Arbutus all the way to the University of British Columbia.
The construction on the line is expected to last until 2025 when the project is scheduled to be completed.
The first phase of demolition, including the work on East Broadway, will be focused on demolition to construct six new station entrances and create laydown areas that will be used as work staging and storage. The province says this will help keep construction activity off Broadway and the adjacent streets as much as possible, mitigating disruption and managing safety for drivers, pedestrians and cyclists.
The contractor is currently working to finalize designs for the new stations, which will be presented at a public open house in the spring. Major tunnelling is expected to start in 2022.