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List of tallest buildings in Vancouver
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Vancouver is the most populous city in the Canadian province of British Columbia. With a metropolitan area population of 2,642,825 as of 2021, it is the third largest metropolitan area in Canada. Vancouver's skyline is characterized by its abundance and density of residential towers, unique amongst cities in North America, as well as its position on a peninsula on the Burrard Inlet. As of 2025, Vancouver has 71 buildings that reach a height of 100 m (328 ft), and Greater Vancouver has the second most skyscrapers and high-rises in Canada, behind Toronto.
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One of the earliest tall buildings in the city was the Hotel Vancouver, one of Canada's grand railway hotels. Vancouver underwent a building boom starting in the mid-1960s, with many notable office towers such as TD Tower and the Harbour Centre being added to the skyline in the 1970s. From the 1980s onwards, Vancouver's urban planning in downtown has been highly influenced by the philosophy of Vancouverism, which encouraged mixed-use developments, narrow high-rise residential towers atop a commercial base, and reliance on public transit.[1][2] The majority of high-rise construction since the early 1990s has been residential, and this boom has continued to the present.
The city has 27 protected view corridors which limit the construction of tall buildings that interfere with the line of sight to the North Shore Mountains, the downtown skyline, and the waters of English Bay and the Strait of Georgia.[3] Nevertheless, there are seven buildings taller than 150 m (492 ft) in Vancouver today. The tallest building in the city is the 62-storey, 201 (659) Living Shangri-La, completed in 2010. It took the title from One Wall Centre, another mixed-use skyscraper with hotel and residential components, which was completed in 2001. Living Shangri-La was the first building in Vancouver to surpass 150 metres, marking a trend in increasingly tall buildings since the 2010s. Some notable additions include Paradox Hotel Vancouver (2016), Vancouver House (2019), and The Butterfly (2024), currently the city's second, seventh, and fifth-tallest buildings respectively. A relaxation of the view corridor policy in 2024 will likely encourage further growth across the Downtown Peninsula.[4][5] In 2025, a proposal surfaced for a three-tower complex with a 315 m (1,033) supertall skyscraper,[6] which would become the tallest building in the city and in all of Western Canada if built.
Almost all of the city's buildings that exceed 100 metres in height are located in Downtown Vancouver and the nearby areas that make up the Downtown Peninsula, including Yaletown and Coal Harbour. Shorter high-rises can be found more sparsely in neighbourhoods such as Gastown and Fairview that surround the Peninsula. A growing number of high-rise developments have occurred outside of the peninsula in recent years, including a cluster of high-rises around Marine Drive station in South Vancouver that appeared in the 2010s. The indigenous-led Sen̓áḵw development, currently under construction at the foot of the Burrard Bridge,[7] will extend the skyline to the southwest, while the Oakridge Center redevelopment around Oakridge Park[8] will result in a new high-rise cluster in Oakridge.
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History
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1900s–1950s: Early development
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Vancouver's history of skyscrapers began with the Dominion Building, the city's first high-rise.[9] It was a 13-storey Beaux-Arts style commercial building completed in 1910.[10] It was briefly the tallest building in Vancouver and in the entirety of the British Empire, until the nearby Sun Tower rose in 1912. Commissioned by L. D. Taylor to house his newspaper, The Vancouver World, he intended for the building to be the tallest in the city.[11] These early high-rises were located around the city's Commercial Square (now the Victory Square park), contrasting the heavy stone construction of the turn of the century.[10]
The Edwardian Vancouver Block, at 15 stories tall, was also completed in 1912, featuring a clock tower. Neon lighting would be added to the clock face in 1927, the first neon lighting erected in Vancouver.[12] These early high-rises reflected the city's early economic boom, driven by rapid population growth; between 1901 and 1911, Vancouver's population grew from 26,133 to 100,401.[13] The Sun Tower would be overtaken by Marine Building in 1930, designed in the Art Deco style that was in vogue in North America at the time. The 21-storey, 98 m (321 ft) tall building was named after the marine-themed ornaments that decorate it, such as depictions of sea snails, crabs, and turtles.
Another early high-rise was the Hotel Vancouver, the second building to hold that name; it was an Italian Renaissance style hotel built in 1916. The hotel sat on the site of the original Hotel Vancouver, which had a shingle-style design and was the city's first grand hotel when it was completed in 1888. The first hotel closed in 1913 and was later demolished. Both hotels were built by the Canadian Pacific Railway; a rival company, the Canadian Northern Railway, and later the Canadian National Railway, had planned to build a hotel of its own in the city. The new hotel, located northwest of the Hotel Vancouver, began construction in 1928; however, the Great Depression delayed the completion and opening of the hotel until 1939. Money to finally complete the hotel was provided by the Canadian government in 1937. Fearing the market was not large enough for competing hotels, the railways agreed to a joint CP-CN hotel as a condition of the completion.[14] The second hotel was closed in 1939 to prevent competition with the new hotel. It was used as a barracks during World War II, and subsequently demolished in 1949. The new Châteauesque Hotel Vancouver was the first building to breach 100 m (328 ft) in height. It remained as the city's tallest building for over 30 years, and is now considered one of Canada's grand railway hotels.
1960s–1970s: Office expansion
Little to no new high-rises were built downtown between the 1940s and the late 1960s, other than the completion of the new BC Electric headquarters (today the Electra condominiums), completed in 1957. From the late 1960s to the early 1980s, Vancouver witnessed a major expansion of skyscraper and high-rise construction downtown, fundamentally reshaping its skyline. These new skyscrapers largely adopted the international and modern styles. Notable new offices included Arthur Erickson Place in 1968, the TD Tower in 1972, and the Royal Centre in 1973. TD Tower, which is connected to the Pacific Centre shopping mall, overtook the Hotel Vancouver to briefly become the tallest building in Vancouver at 127 m (417 ft), before the Royal Centre took the title a year later at a height of 145 m (476 ft). Granville Square, completed in 1973, became a prominent building overlooking Waterfront station; the top of the building houses the Vancouver Harbour Control Tower, the tallest air traffic control tower in the world at 142 m (466 ft) high. Another major development was the Bentall Centre, which initially consisted of four office towers, built between 1967 and 1981.[15]
Harbour Centre became the tallest building in the city at 147 m (482 ft) upon completion in 1977. On top of the office building is a "UFO-shaped" observation tower, featuring a 360-degree viewing deck and a revolving restaurant that offers visitors a view of Downtown Vancouver from above. The building is a prominent landmark on the city's skyline, with the tower and antenna extending the structure's height to 177 m (581 ft). The Vancouver Lookout tourist attraction was opened by Neil Armstrong, whose footprint was imprinted onto cement and was on display on the observation deck, until it was lost during later renovations.[16]
The 1960s would also see an influx of high-rise buildings in the West End neighbourhood, west of downtown. Many Bauhaus-style residential buildings were built between the 1960s and early 1970s.[17] This wave of development was controversial at the time, and the resulting increase in density was met with considerable opposition.[18] However, today the neighbourhood is regarded as one of Vancouver's most desirable areas, in part from the residential towers in the area.[19][20] Two notable hotel skyscrapers were also built in the area: the Coast Plaza Hotel in 1969, and the Empire Landmark Hotel in 1974. The latter overtook Hotel Vancouver as the city's tallest hotel, and had the city's first revolving restaurant on its top floor, Cloud 9, before the Harbour Centre. Both hotels were closed in 2017, and the Empire Landmark Hotel was demolished from 2018 and 2019. It is the tallest voluntarily demolished building in all of Canada.
1980s–1990s: Vancouverism
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In the 1980s, an urban planning paradigm began to emerge in Vancouver which sought to promote a large residential population living near the city centre in mixed-use developments, typically narrow high-rise towers atop a wide-medium height commercial base, as well as an increased reliance on mass transit, and preserving views of Vancouver's surrounding landscape.[21] This philosophy was named Vancouverism, after the city itself.[22] In 1989, the city council designated 26 protected view cones (also called view corridors) to ensure views of the ocean and North Shore Mountains were maintanied from certain parts of the city.[23] The view corridors covered much of the Downtown Peninsula, limiting the height that skyscrapers could reach for the decades to come. Some have partly attributed Vancouverism and the growing prevalence of high-rise towers to the increase in immigrants from Hong Kong to the city during the 1980s.[24]
Vancouver's world fair held in 1986, Expo 86, brought renewed attention to the city, and is widely seen as marking a shift in Vancouver's perception from a provincial locale to a city with global clout.[25] Since the 1990s, residential construction has made up a majority of high-rise development in Vancouver, and residential towers began to regularly exceed 100 metres (328 feet). Development was spreading south of downtown, with buildings such as The Pinnacle (1996) and Landmark 33 (1998) in Yaletown. The completion of BC Place and Rogers Arena southeast of downtown around this time would also spur high-rise development nearby. The area of Coal Harbour northwest of downtown was greatly transformed by urban development. An industrial area for much of the 20th century,[26] Coal Harbour is now characterized by high-rise residential towers. Expo 86 would also lead to the completion of Vancouver's rapid transit system, SkyTrain, which would go on to encourage transit-oriented development in Vancouver and its metropolitan area.
2000s–2010s: New heights
The Harbour Centre, which stood as the city's tallest building for 24 years, would be dethroned by One Wall Centre, part of the Wall Centre development, in 2001. The mixed-use hotel and residential skyscraper has a roof height of 149.8 m (491), just 0.2 m shy of the 150 m benchmark. The building's height prompted city planners to negotiate with the developer, which agreed to use a light color of glass for the exterior. During construction, the city discovered a darker tint of glass was being applied instead. The upper floors were initially completed with a more translucent shade of glass, which were ultimately replaced with the same type of glass used on the lower floors.[27] One Wall Centre has the distinction of being the first building in the world to use a tuned liquid column damper to control wind vibrations.[28]
Towards the new century, there was growing concern that the city's approach to Vancouverism, owing to the view corridors established in 1989, would lessen visual interest in the skyline, and failed to represent the city's contemporary image. In response, the city council commissioned a "Skyline Study" in 1997 which concluded that the visual interest of Vancouver's skyline would benefit from the addition of a handful of buildings exceeding current height limits.[29] One of those sites would be the location of Living Shangri-La, Vancouver's current tallest building. Completed in 2010, the skyscraper broke through both the 150 m (492 ft) and 200 m (656 ft) barriers. Like One Wall Centre, it is a mixd-use building with a hotel and residential units.
The 2010s brought further growth in height around the Downtown Peninsula. The city's second tallest building, Paradox Hotel Vancouver, was completed in 2016. Woodward's 34, built in 2010, became the tallest building in Gastown and Downtown Eastside at 122 m (401 ft) tall. The area around the entrance to Granville Street Bridge, on the south of the peninsula, had steadily increased in height from the 2000s. Developments such as The Mark (2013) and The Charleson (2018) added weight to the skyline around it. In 2019, the neofuturist Vancouver House, with its honeycomb texture, would become a distinctive landmark when entering the peninsula from the bridge.
While high-rise development outside of the downtown core had been nearly nonexistent due to zoning restrictions and view cones, this gradually began to change in the 2010s. In South The Marine Gateway development in South Vancouver, around Marine Drive station, was built in the late 2010s, forming a second distinct cluster of high-rise within city limits. In the far east of city limits around Joyce–Collingwood station, a line of high-rises have appeared in the early 21st century, although these towers may be considered a part of the high-rise cluster in Metrotown, in the city of Burnaby.
2020s–present: Beyond downtown
So far, three additional skyscrapers above 150 m (492 ft) have been built on the Downtown Peninsula in the 2020s, that being One Burrard Place (2021), The Stack (2023), and The Butterfly (2024). One Burrard Place was briefly the tallest residential building in Vancouver,[30] before it was overtaken by The Butterfly. The Butterfly's cylindrical form is integrated into a Baptist church at the base,[31] while The Stack is an office building that resembles a series of stacked boxes.[32] These new skyscrapers, as well as Vancouver House and the curved Alberni by Kengo Kuma (2023) are seen as a departure from the standard glass-clad designs of Vancouver's earlier high-rises.[33][34]
The 2020s has seen an acceleration in high-rise development outside of downtown. Sen̓áḵw is a planned development of over 11 residential towers, ranging from 12 to 58 storeys in height, built on land owned by the Squamish Nation around the entrance of the Burrard Bridge, south of downtown. The Squamish Nation won the land back in 2003, and plans to develop the site were approved in 2020.[35] As the land is not subject to the city's zoning laws, the Squamish Nation were able to build at higher densities than normally allowed under the city's zoning. Currently under construction, the towers will extend the downtown skyline to the southwest. The first phase, consisting of three towers, are expected to be built by 2026.[36]
Another indigenous-led project, Jericho Lands, is being planned by the Musqueam First Nation, Squamish Nation, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nation.[37] Occupying the Jericho Hill Grounds in West Point Grey, the site would house 24,000 people across 10 million square feet, in residential towers of up to 32 storeys.[38][39] The development will take place over a 30-year horizon. If built, it would form a new cluster of high-rises west of downtown.
In South Vancouver, the ongoing redevelopment of the Oakridge Park shopping centre will involve the construction of ten residential towers,[40] up to 154.3 m (506 ft) tall, forming another separate cluster to the south of downtown. Nearby, the planned Oakridge Transit Centre development will include 17 buildings between four and 26 storeys.[41][42] Between Oakridge and Marine Gateway, the Cambie Gardens development was built in 2023, including a 28-storey affordable housing tower named Dogwood Gardens.[43][44] Fraser Commons is a standalone development of two 22 and 14-storey towers in the Sunset area, completed in 2022.
In the metropolitan area, significant skyscraper clusters have emerged in the early 21st century, partly driven by transiet-oriented development, most notably in Metrotown and Brentwood in Burnaby, but also in Burquitlam and Coquitlam Town Centre in Coquitlam, and in New Westminster, Richmond, and Surrey. The development of these centres has led an increasingly polycentric skyline throughout Metro Vancouver to address the city's high demand for living space.
A number of pro-development policies have been passed in recent years, to address the city's high housing costs by increasing the supply of new homes. The Broadway Plan is a 30-year plan to improve housing, jobs, and amenities around the Broadway extension to the SkyTrain's Millennium Line. It was approved in 2022 and amended in 2024 to further increase the density allowed in the plan.[45][46] Under the plan, Vancouver's main skyline would expand towards the areas of Fairview and Mount Pleasant, helping to increase the availability of housing in the city. In 2024, the city council relaxed its view cone policy, reducing 14 of the 38 view cones and eliminating two entirely. This could potentially unlock 215 million square feet of development and 75,000 units of housing.[47][48] The view cones have been criticized for being arbitrary and contributing to the city's housing crisis.[49]
In 2025, a proposal was revealed for a development at 501-595 West Georgia Street that comprises four towers, three of which are taller than the city's current tallest building, Living Shangri-La. The tallest building would reach a height of 315 m (1,033 ft), becoming Vancouver's first supertall skyscraper.[50][51] It would also be the tallest building in Canada outside of Toronto. The complex will create 1,939 new homes, a 920-room hotel, and 70,130 square feet of conference space.[52] Its curved design, described as being wrapped by a "sculptural exoskeleton", is inspired by sea sponges off the coast of British Columbia, and would be a striking landmark on the skyline if built.[53]
In July 2025, the Shangri-La hotel announced that the city's tallest building, Living Shangri-La, will be rebranded to the Hyatt Vancouver Downtown Alberni, having been acquired by Brookfield Properties.[54][55]
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Tallest buildings
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This list ranks buildings in Vancouver that stand at least 100 m (328 ft) tall, based on CTBUH height measurement standards. This includes spires and architectural details but does not include antenna masts.
Was the tallest building in Vancouver upon completion
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Tallest under construction or proposed
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Under construction
The following table ranks skyscrapers that are under construction in Vancouver that are expected to be at least 1 m (492 ft) tall as of 2025, based on standard height measurement. The “Year” column indicates the expected year of completion. Buildings that are on hold are not included.
Proposed
The following table ranks proposed and approved skyscrapers in Vancouver that are expected to be at least 100 m (328 ft) tall as of 2025, based on standard height measurement. The “Year” column indicates the expected year of completion. A dash "–" indicates information about the proposal is unknown or not publicly available.
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Tallest demolished
This table lists buildings in Vancouver that were demolished or destroyed and at one time stood at least 100 metres (328 ft) in height.
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Timeline of tallest buildings
This is a list of buildings that in the past held the title of tallest building in Vancouver.
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Map
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This map shows the location of buildings in Vancouver that are taller than 100 m (328 ft). Each marker is coloured by the decade of the building's completion. There are two buildings that exceed this height that are not visible on the map, both located near Marine Drive station in southern Vancouver: Marine Gateway North, and Ashley Mar III.
  320m 349yds 71 70 69 68  67 66 65 64 63 62 61 60 59 58 57 56 55 54 53 52 51 50 49 48 47 46 45 44 43 42 41 40 39 38 37 36 35 34 33 32 31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Buildings taller than 100 m (328 ft) in Vancouver. An asterisk (*) next to the name of the building indicates it is located outside the map.
1 Living Shangri-La2 Paradox Hotel Vancouver3 The Butterfly4 One Burrard Place5 The Stack6 The Private Residences at Hotel Georgia7 Vancouver House8 One Wall Centre9 Shaw Tower10 Harbour Centre11 MNP Tower12 The Melville13 Royal Centre14 Fairmont Pacific Rim15 Bentall 516 Park Place17 Granville Square18 Four Bentall Centre19 Scotia Tower20 Telus Garden Residential Tower21 Alberni by Kengo Kuma22 Peter Wall Mansion & Residences23 TD Tower24 Capitol Residences25 Patina26 The Charleson27 The Mark28 B629 Vancouver Centre II30 Woodward's 4331 Three Bentall Centre32 The Pacific in Vancouver33 Jameson House34 The Ritz Coal Harbour35 320 Granville36 West One37 Cathedral Place38 1335 Howe39 Marriott Pinnacle Hotel40 The Exchange41 Tate on Howe42 West Pender Place 143 Sheraton West Tower44 Hotel Vancouver45 Venus46 Hyatt Regency Vancouver47 601 West Hastings48 Residences on Georgia (West)49 Marine Gateway North*50 The Pinnacle51 Callisto52 Dolce53 Landmark 3354 Residences on Georgia (East)55 Two Harbour Green56 Board of Trade Building57 Oceanic Plaza58 Arthur Erickson Place59 Quay West Tower I60 Ashley Mar III*61 Elan62 Classico63 Aquilini Centre West64 FortisBC Centre65 Paris Place66 HSBC Building67 Canaccord Tower68 Coast Plaza Hotel69 Carmana Plaza70 Guinness Tower71 Hudson |
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Cityscape
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References
External links
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