About Hudson Place One

Hudson Place One is a 25-storey, 176-home concrete tower at Herald and Blanshard, completed in 2020 by Townline. It is the tallest residential building in Victoria, and for now the highest homes in the city are in it.

The mix runs one-, two- and three-bedroom homes, from around 450 square feet at the smallest to just under 2,300 in the penthouses. That spread is unusual: most Victoria towers pick a lane. Hudson Place One holds compact investor and first-buyer stock and full-floor penthouse product in the same elevator core.

It also does something almost no other building in Victoria does, which we'll come to below.

Architecture & Design

The tower is steel and concrete on a poured concrete foundation, clad in brick and metal siding, with a landscaped entry court and water feature at grade. It is the residential piece of Townline's larger Hudson District redevelopment, built around the restored Hudson's Bay building that now houses the Victoria Public Market.

Because the tower stands well clear of everything around it, view quality is a function of height and orientation rather than luck. West and southwest homes take the Inner Harbour, the Parliament Buildings, the Sooke Hills and the Olympic Mountains, with float planes and cruise ships in the foreground. East and north homes get the city, the Blue Bridge and Mt. Baker. Outdoor space is generous by downtown standards — many homes have multiple balconies, corner homes carry patios of 400 to 500 square feet, and the penthouses have terraces larger than most condos.

Suite Features & Finishes

Air conditioning is standard in every home. This is the single most important thing to know about the building and the thing the marketing copy tends to bury. Homes run on heat pumps, with forced air, radiant floor and gas backup depending on the plan. In a city where the overwhelming majority of condo stock has baseboard heat and no cooling, and where retrofitting is a strata approval problem, a 2020 building with A/C already in every suite is a genuinely different product.

Kitchens are fitted with quartz counters — waterfall islands in many plans — integrated Bosch appliances, gas cooktops, and cabinetry that conceals the fridge and dishwasher. Bathrooms have heated tile floors, deep soaker tubs and, in some homes, motion-sensor lighting. Floors are wide-plank throughout. Buyers originally chose between two West Coast colour palettes, so interiors vary in tone from home to home. Wine storage appears in a number of plans.

Floor-to-ceiling windows are standard, as is in-suite laundry.

Building Amenities

Over 11,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor amenity — the largest package of any residential building downtown, and the reason people either love this building or find it more than they need.

• Concierge — front desk service
• Fitness centre and yoga studio
• Saunas — including an infrared sauna
• Games and billiards room, party room, chef's kitchen
• Business centre / co-working space
• Media room and meeting rooms
• Guest suite — bookable for visitors
• Outdoor courtyard — firepit, outdoor kitchen and BBQ area
• Children's playground
• Dog wash and dog run
• Bike storage
• Secure underground parking — one or two stalls, with EV charging installed or roughed in on many; guest parking provided
• Storage lockers
• Secured entry throughout

Accessibility is strong: accessible and wheelchair-friendly entry, level thresholds, and single-level layouts throughout.

Pets, rentals and bylaws

Pets. More permissive than most downtown towers, and the bylaw is worth reading properly because the categories stack rather than competing. Bylaw 6.3 permits a resident to keep any or all of: a reasonable number of fish or other small aquarium animals; up to two caged mammals; up to two caged birds; and either two dogs, or two cats, or one dog and one cat.

The building has a dog wash and a dog run, which tells you the strata expected dogs rather than tolerating them.

Rentals. Permitted. Short-term rentals and Airbnb are prohibited, and the original developer disclosure set a 30-day minimum tenancy. Confirm the current minimum term with the strata, as this is the field most likely to have been amended.

Barbecues. Permitted, restricted to gas or propane.

Age. No age restriction.

Other. The property is subject to a building scheme in addition to the strata bylaws. Read both.

Confirm everything above with the strata before writing an offer. Bylaws change, and the MLS field is not the bylaw.

The Hudson District

Hudson Place One sits in the Hudson District, the block-scale redevelopment around the old Hudson's Bay department store on Douglas Street. The Victoria Public Market is downstairs and across the courtyard — produce, butcher, bakery, prepared food — which is as close to a European grocery arrangement as downtown Victoria gets.

Chinatown and Fisgard Street are two blocks west. The restaurants and bars of lower Johnson and Yates are a five-minute walk south. Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre is around the corner, which means hockey crowds and concert traffic on event nights. The Inner Harbour and the Parliament Buildings are roughly ten minutes on foot.

This is the northern edge of the downtown core — busier and less polished than the Humboldt Valley, more convenient than almost anywhere else in the city.

Connectivity & Transportation

Douglas Street is the spine of BC Transit's network, and most Greater Victoria routes stop within a block or two of the building. That makes this one of the few addresses in the region where car-free living is straightforward rather than aspirational.

The Johnson Street Bridge and the Galloping Goose Regional Trail are a ten-minute walk west, connecting to Vic West, Esquimalt and the Westshore. Victoria International Airport is about 30 minutes north; the Swartz Bay ferry terminal roughly 35.

Who this building suits — and who it doesn't

It suits buyers who want air conditioning without a renovation fight, owners with two pets, investors who need long-term rental flexibility in new concrete, and anyone who will actually use a gym, a guest suite and a co-working room rather than just pay for them.

It doesn't suit anyone looking for the cheapest route into downtown concrete — the amenity package is extensive and it is not free — anyone who wants a quiet building, or anyone whose calendar collides with event nights at the arena. If you want a small, plain, well-run building with nothing in the lobby but mailboxes, we will point you somewhere else.

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