Local developer Beedie was the buyer after 14 bids were received for a 22-acre vacant industrial site in Delta.
The sale of the assembled property, owned by Delco Container Limited Partnership at 7590, 7664 and 7688 80th Street, is considered the largest industrial deal in Metro Vancouver so far this year and the largest ever for CBRE Vancouver, which brokered the transaction.
Selling price in the deal, which closed on February 1, has not been released.
The two most recent Delta industrial land sales, both on River Road, sold for an average of $4.2 million per acre, according to data from Avison Young.
CBRE senior vice-president Joel Barnett said the 14 sealed offers were received from pension funds, real estate investment trusts, local developers and others.
“Metro Vancouver remains an incredibly challenging market to navigate when you have owner-occupiers, developers and investors all competing for the same space,” Barnett said. “We’re seeing purchasers become much more aggressive with the terms they propose from unconditional offers to larger security deposits.”
Delta has a record-low industrial vacancy rate of 0.3 per cent, and the overall Metro Vancouver industrial vacancy rate is at an historic low of 0.6 per cent, according to CBRE.
“While we have a record high of 9.4 million square feet of industrial space currently under construction, nearly 80 per cent of that is already spoken for,” added CBRE senior vice-president Steve Brooke.
Delco will leave the Delta site vacant.
“Given the level of demand in the market, I think, touch wood, we’ve got a reasonable probability of securing a build-to-suit and have a tenant that would commit to a large portion of the site, so we wouldn’t do speculative development,” said Todd Yuen, president of Beedie Industrial Development. “I mean, there’s just so many specialized users out there looking for a home.”
