Plans are already afoot to redevelop 130 West Broadway, site of the Vancouver store of outdoor retailer MEC.

“We’re working on plans right now,” Jon Stovell, president of Reliance Properties, told the Straight in a phone interview Tuesday (December 8). Stovell said the redevelopment will be a mix of residential and retail uses, plus public amenities.

“We hope to be bringing forward some redevelopment concepts for the site early next year,” Stovell said.

MEC has been leasing 130 West Broadway from Reliance Properties since 1995. The outdoor retailer is currently occupying a single-floor building that is near the end of its useful life.

“It’s a very, very large site, a very important site on the Broadway corridor, so it’s going to become, I think, quite an interesting discussion next year about the best way to deal with that opportunity,” Stovell said.

MEC expects to move in 2018 to a new store location at 101 East 2nd Avenue, which is currently subject to a rezoning application by the Beedie Development Group.

The Beedie Development Group plans to develop a three-storey retail and office building in the Southeast False Creek location.

“The site at 2nd Avenue and Quebec Street is ideal in many respects,” MEC’s public-affairs manager, Tim Southam, told the Straight by phone. “Being in Olympic Village…there’s a lot of activity that goes on down there that’s directly related to what we do as an outdoor retailer.”