As reported by CBC, the Competition Bureau has ordered Sobey’s Inc. to sell 23 stores in Western Canada before it will approve its $5.8-billion purchase of grocer Safeway Canada.

The Nova Scotia-based supermarket chain says it has agreed to put the supermarkets on the block and it expects to close the acquisition of the Canadian assets of Safeway in early November.

The two affected Metro Vancouver properties are:

Tsawwassen Safeway

Safeway Tsawwassen, 1143 56th Street, Tsawwassen

This is a 4.5 acre site in the heart of Tsawwassen’s commercial area. The property is zoned C-1. It is assessed at $11,977,000.

New Westminster Thrifty’s

Thrifty Foods Sapperton, 270 East Columbia Street, New Westminster

The Thrifty’s is located as part of Wesgroup’s Brewery District project and does not have redevelopment potential.

As we’re now well into Q4 2013, a brief look at average cap rates in Metro Vancouver shows (surprise!) no significant change from 2012. Underpinned by an environment of continually cheap debt, cap rates have been flat or remain in slight decline, and now 100 BPS below the rolling 10 year average of 6.2%.

Average Cap Rates 1993-2013

Of course, only in rare cases are Vancouver buyers truly finding yield; it is often more of a ‘safety’ play. With a healthy supply of potential (and anxious) private equity buyers that have amassed significant, undeployed cash reserves in reaction to depressed and uncertain market conditions in recent years, cap rates are being bid down now as much as ever. This, coupled with fiscal authorities in both Canada and the United States continuing to maintain interest rates at historically low levels have resulted in the continuation of historically low cap rates in Vancouver.

The first signs of a shift in this trend may already be occurring with a slight downward trend in transaction activity so far in 2013. A continuation of this trend in 2014 combined with a changing economic/interest rate environment and potentially volatile leasing markets (particularly in office) may finally exert upward pressure on cap rates.

…just don’t tell owners…

Apartments to spring up around future Walmart – Richmond Review.

The road to Walmart is about to get more crowded.

Polygon is moving ahead with plans to build an apartment complex with 547 homes on Alexandra Road, across from the proposed SmartCentres retail mall. A development permit panel considered the application for Alexandra Court, from Polygon Development 269 Ltd. at Richmond City Hall.

“The proposal responds well to creating a strong, street-oriented building frontage character and the continued development of the pedestrian Alexandra Way corridor through the neighbourhood,” noted planned David Johnson in a report.

Four buildings, each with five to six storeys, along with a separate amenity building, would cover a one-level parkade on the 2.5-hectare (6.2-acre) development site near Garden City Road.

City council approved rezoning of the site earlier this year. Two residents complained over the growing density of the Alexandra neighbourhood, but the project is within the projected population targets under the West Cambie Area Plan.

Read more: http://www.richmondreview.com/news/227910411.html

From Business in Vancouver – Avison Young has announced the listing of 815 West Hastings Street, a 106,943-square-foot office block built in 1976. The property last sold in December 2010 for $45.3 million, when a private buyer acquired it from Investors Group.

815 West Hastings

 According to RealNet Canada Inc., office properties valued in excess of $10 million enjoy an annual compound growth rate of 7.2%. Documentation Avison Young circulated last week suggests a “pricing guideline” for 815 West Hastings of $60 million, though a formal list price has not been set.

Read more: http://www.biv.com/article/20131015/BIV0320/310159888/us-debt-shenanigans-stand-to-boost-local-borrowing-costs

In a blockbuster cross-Canada deal of more than $60 million, Madison Pacific has bought 12 office/industrial properties, including three in Langley. With the Agricultural Land Reserve severely limiting development closer to Vancouver, the Fraser Valley township is fast emerging as a B.C. commercial real estate hotspot, according to industry experts.

“The Langley site in particular is strategic in that it represents 21 contiguous acres of land with over a kilometre of frontage on the Trans-Canada Highway,” says Robert Gritten, principal at Avison Young, which led the 12 deals for Madison Pacific. “As Madison Pacific invests for the long term, the opportunity this site offers for redevelopment is dramatic.”

Like all properties in the deal – to a total of 540,000 square feet of office/warehouse/enclosed storage space on 98 acres of land – the Langley ones have only 13-per-cent site coverage, compared to traditional industrial averages of 40-50 per cent. All are tenanted by Burnaby-based Taiga Building Products.

Referring to “the stifling effect” on Metro Vancouver of the ALR restrictions established by the Barrett NDP government starting in 1973, Gritten says: “As a result of this supply-demand imbalance, yes, we are more expensive than most, if not all, markets in North America. The geographic advantages that make this city such a great place to live actually work to a disadvantage when we attempt to meet the demand of our industrial manufacturers and distributors. They want and need to be here. We are the gateway for Canada to Asia, but it is so difficult to secure suitable premises for most of our user clients.”