City sends Harbourside to hearing.

The controversial Harbourside development south of the North Shore Automall will go to an official public hearing in June following a Monday night decision by City of North Vancouver council.

Council voted 5-2 in favour of moving the project forward to a formal official community plan amendment process, after the developers made changes to the original plan and council gathered public feedback in March.

Commercial market at ‘peak levels’.

The CPP Investment Board paid $63 million for a 50-per-cent stake in 401 West Georgia.

Photograph by: Glenn Baglo, PNG , Vancouver Sun

Metro Vancouver’s commercial real estate market booked a record number of sales over $10 million in the first quarter of 2012, according to new research by the firm RealNet Canada, although the total number of transactions were lower than the last quarter of 2011.

The region saw 24 property sales in excess of $10 million, which exceeded the previous record in 2009 by three transactions.

Paul Richter, RealNet’s national research manager said that is a positive indicator for the market.

“Bigger really shows that there’s extreme confidence in the market,” he said.

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Commercial+market+peak+levels/6699489/story.html#ixzz1wPsOUKqy

Three downtown Vancouver towers to focus on rental units over market condos.

 

Aquilini Developments says a three-highrise tower development near Rogers Arena ‘is probably the largest rental project [in Vancouver] in the last 30 years.’

Three new highrise towers planned beside Rogers Arena will feature several hundred rental units as their residential component instead of condominiums.

“It’s in the heart of the downtown core and we thought it would be a great rental project,” said David Negrin, president of Aquilini Developments and Construction, on Wednesday. “We’re taking some risk, but feel there’s a real requirement for rentals in downtown Vancouver.”

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Three+downtown+Vancouver+towers+focus+rental+units+over+market+condos/6704420/story.html#ixzz1wPqwhw3x

Dolphin Cinemas building up for redevelopment.

The building that houses Burnaby’s popular Dolphin Cinemas is up for redevelopment.

The rezoning application for the development came before Burnaby council at Monday night’s meeting.

411 Dunsmuir Street in Downtown Vancouver has sold. Known as the 411 Senior’s Centre for several years, the 4-storey building sold for $8,775,000, or about $266 per sq ft based on a total building area of 33,000 sq ft. The building will be undergoing minor renovations including to the exterior and street level space. The purchaser was a local group. As of last week, the Senior’s Centre Society had moved to 333 Terminal Avenue.