Burnaby Courts Big Towers Near Transit as an Economic Driver

Aggressive urban planning around SkyTrain stations in Burnaby is turning the municipality into Metro Vancouver’s hotbed for condo development, according to an Urban Development Institute report.

Heavy pre-sales in projects such as Station Square at Metrotown and the redevelopment of Brentwood Town Centre added up to almost 30 per cent of all new-construction sales across Metro Vancouver, outpacing Vancouver’s downtown and west side neighbourhoods.

Throw in the city’s east side and Vancouver still sold more condominiums, but Burnaby’s high-density push is bringing development levels between the two cities closer together.

To the end of the third quarter, Burnaby saw 1,613 presales of condos under development compared with 1,394 for downtown and west-side Vancouver combined, UDI reported.

In total, developers have projects that add up to 14,548 units in the planning stage in Burnaby, within striking distance of the 14,766 in the City of Vancouver’s planning process.