A restaurant is still in the plans for a prime space in Anvil Centre.
The empty space at the corner of Eighth and Columbia streets in New Westminster’s newest facility is destined to be a restaurant.
Lisa Spitale, the city’s chief administrative officer, said Colliers has just completed its marketing material and should now be in a position to start marketing this location. She hopes that will result in some prospective interest in a couple of months.
Mayor Jonathan Cote said he’d like to see the restaurant space filled as quickly as possible because of the benefits it will have on the area.
“It’s a great synergy with the civic centre, with the office tower and with the downtown neighbourhood,” he said. “One of the reasons why the city really wanted to put a retail space down there was we wanted to bring life to the street. Certainly, it’s an incredible corner piece.
Cote said the city had been engaged in discussions with some interested parties in the past, but is exploring its options for the space. He said the city is still committed to seeing a restaurant in the space but it remains to be seen if it would need all of the space that’s been set aside once the “right restaurant partner” is found.
“Our focus for that area is restaurant space,” he said. “If we had a situation where a restaurant tenant came in and didn’t need all of the space, we are finding such success with our conference space that building another meeting room to accommodate that and renting it as rentable space for the conference centre is certainly an option we could look at. But our primary goal for that space is a restaurant.”
