Transforming pilot plazas into spaces where community, green design, and everyday movement come together

City of Vancouver — Four Permanent Plazas

The Four Permanent Plazas Project is a City of Vancouver initiative to convert successful pilot plazas into permanent, fully serviced public spaces. The plazas are located at Main Street and East 14th Avenue, Cambie Street and West 18th Avenue, Granville Street and West 14th Avenue, and Kamloops Street and East Hastings Street, along some of the city’s most active corridors.

The project transforms interim installations into durable, event‑ready neighborhood plazas that support gathering, socializing, and community programming. Permanent upgrades include improved electrical service to accommodate events and decorative lighting installations, green infrastructure systems and landscape planting, and unique horizontal and vertical hardscape elements. Our team provided a full suite of multidisciplinary consulting services, led by our civil engineering team, incorporating electrical engineering, structural engineering, and geotechnical engineering, as well as landscape architecture. Working closely with the City of Vancouver’s Street Activities team, we enhanced a set of conceptual designs into tender ready detailed designs suitable for construction. 

Our services also included the design and coordination of upgraded electrical infrastructure, grading and drainage, multiple pavement structures, bus bump outs and revised roadway geometry to accommodate additional public spaces on the main roadways, bike lanes, tactile warning indicators and green infrastructure. Structural and geotechnical support were critical for permanent plaza features, and landscape architecture focused on creating flexible, durable, and welcoming public spaces responsive to neighborhood context. Following design, our team has supported the City as the contract administrator through the tender period, and into the construction and close-out. 

The plazas are being delivered as part of the City’s Permanent Plaza Program and are targeted for completion ahead of FIFA World Cup 2026, reinforcing Vancouver’s commitment to vibrant, inclusive, and climate‑resilient public spaces.