Pitt Meadows councillors have approved construction of six new buildings at Golden Ears Business Centre, paving the way for Onni Group of Companies to proceed with construction on 34 of the park’s 94 acres.
The project’s first phase, a 75,000-square-foot multi-tenant building, opened earlier this year and now has two tenants. Work has started on a second building of 100,000 square feet, which is set to be complete by spring 2012. Onni expects the park to have 1.6 million square feet when its complete, with 60 acres allocated to build-to-suit projects.
The buildings Pitt Meadows approved at the beginning of July range from approximately 26,700 to 124,300 square feet. Units will be between 1,750 and 4,900 square feet, plus mezzanines, and will serve small to mid-sized users that can’t get into existing parks such as Maple Meadows and Port Kells.
Space runs at $5.25 a square foot. That’s much lower than competing parks with tighter vacancies and higher land costs. Comparable space in Port Kells, for example, could run to $10 a square foot.
The project also fits a local need. CB Richard Ellis reports that industrial vacancies in the Maple Ridge/Pitt Meadows area are 4.9%, slightly above the 4.6% regional average.
But, thanks to tight supply, the availability of space in Maple Ridge/Pitt Meadows is trending below the regional average. Golden Ears will provide new supply as demand allows, with initial proposals on build-to-suit space already issued.
“We’re looking to tailoring the buildings to what clients’ needs are,” said Chris MacCauley, associate vice-president with Colliers International, who is working on the listing.
Bamberton Properties LLP and Three Point Properties Ltd. are moving steadily toward a development vision for the Bamberton lands north of Victoria.
The 1,550-acre property was formerly home to a plant that supplied cement to projects as diverse as the Lions Gate Bridge and Kitimat aluminum plant. The plant closed in 1982, and the heavily contaminated site became the focus of redevelopment efforts.
David Butterfield and what would become the Trust for Sustainable Development worked on plans for the site between 1989 and 1996, but the initiative lost provincial government support.
Three Point acquired the site in 2005 and completed remediation work and filed a rezoning application for a 3,500-unit residential development on the site in June 2007.
Cowichan Valley Regional District wanted to see more industrial and job space on the site, however, and encouraged Bamberton Properties to defer its plans for residential development.
Open houses were held in May and June, and the new plans received a positive response, in part because parkland on 300 acres of the site would be preserved.
While residential development was one option for making over the former industrial site, Bamberton development manager Ross Tennant said the insistence on job space is true to Bamberton’s history.
“When Bamberton was first established, it was based on its ability to employ people,” he said, “and that led to the residential and schools and recreation centres coming online later.”
Approximately 60 acres of the site is currently in industrial use, but Tennant expects that reservations from new users for space at the site could be taken in summer 2012, pending approvals from the regional district.
“We’ve had quite a few expressions of interest so far,” he said.
Vancouver Island is the top destination for vacation homebuyers, according to a Vancouver firm that has done its share of marketing new projects on the island.
Research in 2011’s first quarter by Project Marketing found that vacation homebuyers looked to Vancouver Island first. RareEarth previously handled marketing of Black Rock Oceanfront Resort in Ucluelet, Victoria’s boutique Oswego Hotel and the Whittakers development in Pender Harbour (as well as several Okanagan properties).
The survey contacted 1,000 people in B.C., Alberta and Saskatchewan, 61% of whom preferred Vancouver Island over the Okanagan (56%) and the U.S. (47%).
The research supports rareEarth’s efforts to market Comox Bay Marina and Residences, a $30 million project Howard Land Group is developing on the Comox waterfront. Howard Land also built the Oswego Hotel.
The appeal of Vancouver Island real estate is also linked to price.
Prices for the Comox project start in the mid-$200,000s, while the average for island real estate is approximately $320,505. Further south in Victoria, the Hudson – a Townline Group redevelopment of the former Hudson Bay department store – has seen sales boom thanks to price reductions of 30% in early July. Twelve units have sold this month, bringing to 89 the number sold in the 151-unit development.