On the move
More than 70 submissions yielded just seven winners at this year’s edition of the Commercial Real Estate Awards of Excellence presented by NAIOP and Business in Vancouver.
And, more often than not, the winners came from cities outside of Vancouver.
Rize Alliance Properties Ltd.’s Containers on Terminal development won honours for its lease to Columbia College, and Vancouver-based Concert Properties Ltd. acquisitions manager Derek Jones was named developing leader, but the rest of the awards went outside the region’s core.
Underscoring some of the most dynamic submarkets in Metro Vancouver, Larco Investments Ltd.’s Morgan Crossing development in Surrey was recognized for mixed-use excellence and the Beedie Group’s 500,000-square-foot build-to-suit distribution centre for Kruger Products LP showed that a former mill site could remain true to its roots.
BC Investment Management Corp.’s Broadway Tech Centre Building 4, a Vancouver property that’s counted as part of the Burnaby sub-market, was the award-winning office development and the Corix Group’s new offices in Langley’s Gateway 200 business park scored in the industrial development category. Rounding out the regional representation, Colliers International’s landmark sale of 160,000 square feet of commercial strata units at Fairchild Developments Ltd.’s Aberdeen Square development in Richmond was recognized as the industry’s top investment transaction.
The successful projects highlighted the opportunities available outside land-constrained Vancouver and the region’s rising employment and population centres. The proximity of the projects to either highways, transit lines or other critical infrastructure for the movement of goods and people showed that growth depends on movement.
The trend is highlighted in the new Jones Lang LaSalle Rapid Transit Index, which looks at office space outside the downtown core. It stated that vacancies within 500 metres of transit dropped twice as fast in the first half of this year than vacancies in space farther away. The average asking net rent for space near rapid transit increased by $3.48 and now sits at $22.11 a square foot, whereas asking rates for space further afield dropped by $0.25 to $17.01 a square foot.
With major new mixed-use projects planned at King George and Surrey Central SkyTrain stations, the Brewery District at Sapperton station in New Westminster, and projects such as award-winning Aberdeen Square anchoring the Canada rapid transit line in Richmond, space close to rapid transit appears set to keep its edge.
Vancouver planning post
The deadline for applications from aspiring successors to former Vancouver director of planning Brent Toderian is this Friday (June 15).
A call to the city last week seeking an update on the process was not returned, but buzz among industry players is that the new position – now dubbed “general manager, planning and development” – will have diminished influence, or at least a lot more to juggle than planning.
The successful candidate will report to the city manager, according to a description of the position published with little fanfare last month, and receive “an attractive salary and excellent benefits.”
BCLC eyes Surrey
A notice for the Surrey Board of Trade’s June 21 annual general meeting promises details on “new developments in Surrey” by the BC Lottery Corp. (BCLC).
The topic is one sure to garner attention, as the Great Canadian Gaming Corp. has been delivering preload to a 25-acre site it acquired a year ago at 14933 Colebrook Road in Cloverdale.
The site is six kilometres south of Newtown Bingo Country, and the speaker at the Surrey Board of Trade is none other than Jim Lightbody, BCLC’s vice-president of casino and community gaming. Lightbody will discuss “strategic initiatives and BCLC’s focus on transforming its business to remain relevant in an increasingly competitive environment,” a BCLC spokesman said.
BCLC has been steadily making over bingo halls as so-called “community gaming centres,” a strategy that has improved operator margins – in some cases upward of 35%.•
