Buoyed by the success of the first two phases of the Campbell Heights North business park, the City of Surrey’s real estate development arm is upbeat about attracting new light industry to the area.
“That’s gone faster than we’d anticipated in terms of pickup in that industrial area,” said Surrey Coun. Bruce Hayne.
About 250 acres of pre-serviced industrial land is being made available for sale and development at 32nd Avenue and 192nd Street, said Surrey City Development Corp. development manager Josh Anderson, who added that he’s seen businesses from Surrey, Vancouver, Langley and Richmond moving to the business park.
“We are seeing some interest from national and international companies that are looking for large-scale expansion, but those ones are bigger and harder to land and they haven’t all quite come in yet. But we are talking to a few bigger international users as well.”
The national companies are mainly manufacturers that support the mining and oil industry, but Anderson declined to disclose names, citing disclosure agreements.
Speculative developers are also interested in buying land at Campbell Heights North and looking for tenants to lease them out.
The entire Campbell Heights industrial area, including the new five phases at Campbell Heights North, covers 1,900 acres. At full build-out it is estimated that up to 20,000 jobs will be located in the area, where several major development companies, including the Beedie Group, have bought properties to accommodate their own built-to-suit clients.
The first phase of Campbell Heights North – approximately 30 acres – sold out in 2012, within a year of being marketed. With construction of utilities and roads completed by the end of 2012, the first owner-occupier, a fish packing and distribution plant, has already set up shop.
Anderson said the second phase is now nearly sold out, and marketing on the third has begun.
Surrey’s low vacancy rates and the scarcity of available land elsewhere in the Lower Mainland is making for a strong outlook, he said, adding that rising land prices at Campbell Heights are meeting expectations.
The first phase was marketed at an introductory rate of around $680,000 an acre. That rate, including development costs, increased to $885,000 for the second phase and $910,000 in the third.
The first two owner-occupiers at Campbell Heights North were financed by BMO Bank of Montreal, whose Surrey-based vice president for commercial banking, Richard Dendy, is upbeat about business prospects in the city, particular at its various business parks.
“We identified Surrey as a strategic market that we want to be very focused on because of the rapid growth in the area,” said Dendy. “We’re focusing on our traditional segments but particularly those 10 Surrey industrial parks; we see a lot of development there, particularly Campbell Heights North.”
Surrey businessman Jeet Dhindsa, who is moving his Van Gogh Designs custom furniture manufacturing company to Campbell Heights North, said the move would allow him to design the building he wants.
“Surrey is one of the fastest-growing cities in Canada and with all the transportation improvements in the Lower Mainland, why wouldn’t you want your business to be south of the Fraser River?”
Dhindsa said connections to Highway 1 and the border only minutes away make shipping to the U.S. easy. •
