Downtown New Westminster runs along Columbia Street from Blackie Spit up to 8th Street, with the Fraser River waterfront and Quayside development along its southern edge. For most of the 20th century it was the commercial centre of the Fraser Valley, and the Victorian-era storefronts on Columbia Street still show it — block after block of two- and three-storey brick and heritage façades, many now housing antique stores, independent cafés, and the slow-growing craft-brewery scene around Front Street's Antique Alley.

Two Expo Line SkyTrain stations serve downtown directly: Columbia station at the foot of 8th Street, and New Westminster station a few blocks east. Both are on the original 1985 Expo Line, so trains run every 2–5 minutes during peak hours and commute time to Waterfront in downtown Vancouver is 25 minutes. This is the real sell of downtown New West — nothing else in Metro Vancouver gives you a Victorian downtown on a river with SkyTrain access at Vancouver-proper frequencies for this rent.

Quayside, the waterfront district below Columbia Street, was industrial until the 1980s when it was redeveloped into a mix of residential towers, the Westminster Quay public market (now rebranded as the River Market), and Westminster Pier Park — a 2012-opened waterfront promenade that stretches the length of downtown along the Fraser. New condo and rental towers have continued to go up along Carnarvon and Columbia for the past decade. One-bedroom purpose-built rentals in the 1990s–2000s towers list around $1,650–1,900; newer builds run $2,000–2,400. For SkyTrain-accessible downtown living below Vancouver or Burnaby prices, Downtown New West is consistently one of the best deals in the region.