Broadway bets
With promises of greater infrastructure funding from the new crew in Ottawa, and Victoria’s pledge last year to ante a third of the cost of new rapid transit funding, developers in Vancouver are hoping at least one level of government might allocate dollars this spring.
Victoria made no promises in last week’s provincial budget, but next month’s offering from Ottawa could give specifics.
“We’re expecting some clarity on transit funding,” said Jon Stovell, president of Reliance Properties Ltd. and vice-chairman of the Urban Development Institute.
A funding commitment from either level of government “would be the catalyst for a real strong Broadway corridor planning initiative to start up,” Stovell said prior to last week’s budget from Victoria. While the province’s silence was “surprising,” he said it will increase the pressure on Ottawa to make the first move.
While governments haggle about how to fund transit, others aren’t so tight with the purse strings. Some developers have paid close to $500 a buildable square foot for sites deemed prime development prospects once transit arrives.
Reliance itself bought the MEC building at 130 West Broadway about a year ago and property at 195 West Broadway two years ago.
“Everybody has been voting for Broadway with their dollars,” Stovell said.
BlueSky Properties Inc. has already broken ground on 988 West Broadway, an 84,000-square-foot property on the site of a former strip mall that’s set to be insurer Industrial Alliance’s regional headquarters when it completes in 2018.
Off Broadway
Transit funding isn’t just key to developers’ hopes for the Broadway corridor; it’s integral to development of some of the more affordable areas of the Lower Mainland.
With residential prices in Vancouver posting double-digit gains last year, many homebuyers have been considering options east of Boundary. Transit investments will support further growth in these areas, a point the Mayors’ Council was keen to make a year ago as it rallied support for the Yes side in the transit plebiscite.
Today, densification around SkyTrain stations such as Commercial-Broadway and Joyce-Collingwood in Vancouver is contentious, even as Cressey Development Corp. pursues Kings Crossing, a mixed-use project adjacent to Edmonds station in Burnaby that will ultimately have 803 homes and 66,000 square feet of office space.
While existing SkyTrain lines support new development projects, it seems equally important that transit move into areas where residential growth is already occurring.
In New Westminster’s Queensborough neighbourhood, an affluent area that’s slated to receive most of the city’s population growth over the next 25 years, transit service was cut in 2012 because ridership on the area’s infrequent buses was among the lowest in Metro Vancouver.
South Surrey and White Rock, which have drawn what Fifth Avenue Real Estate Marketing Ltd. terms “price-sensitive purchasers,” is also in need of greater transit services.
“Transit hasn’t been a large factor” in why people move to the area, said Eric Andreasen, vice-president, marketing and sales, for Adera Development Corp., which is developing two projects in the area. Rather, transit is following the development curve but will be among the amenities Andreasen believes will make the area a more attractive choice for living and working.
And work does indeed play into the equation, with Colliers International reporting 100,000 square feet of office space coming online in South Surrey in the next two years. •
