Changes coming to the West End: In red: the Empire Landmark. In yellow: a plot purchased for $170 million in April by a group led by the Hong Kong-based owner of the Empire Landmark (Google)

A Vancouver architect has put forward a preliminary plan to build two mixed-use towers at the site of the Empire Landmark hotel at 1400 Robson, according to a hearing notice published Friday by the Vancouver’s development permit board. The preliminary report does not specify whether the existing hotel, best known for its rooftop rotating restaurant, will be torn down. When contacted, a representative for Hong Kong-based owner Asia Standard Hotel Ltd. declined to comment.

The proposal calls for one 28-story and one 30-storey towers, with one floor of retail, one floor of office and 280 dwelling units. Fifty seven of those units will be social housing. The notice published Friday states that the applicant is Musson Cattel Mackey Partnership, a Vancouver firm known for developments like the Trump International Hotel & Tower Vancouver and the Vancouver Convention Centre West.

Occupying a full block in Vancouver’s West End, the Empire Landmark is a 42-storey hotel owned by Asia Standard, a publicly listed company that owns three other hotels in Hong Kong. Built for Sheraton in 1971, the 358-room hotel was acquired by Asia Standard in 1997. The application goes before the development permit board on December 12.

The hotel also sits a block away from a 19-storey seventies-era rental tower was purchased in a deal that closed in April for $170 million by a joint venture in which Asia Standard has a 40 per cent stake. That deal, for a property that sold for $84 million in 2014, includes low-rise buildings on the same block. The group plans to demolish the existing towers and redevelop the land into two towers with an accumulated floor plat of 648,000 square feet of mixed high-end residential and commercial, according to a statement by one of Asia Standard’s partners in the deal.