Bentall Kennedy, on behalf Sun Life, has applied to the City of Vancouver to rezone a one and a half acre existing apartment property known as Forte Apartments at 1755 West 14th Avenue from RM-3  to CD-1. The application is being made under the City’s Rental 100 program to allow a 100% market-rental development, including:

• retention of the existing 13-storey, market-rental building;
• the addition of two new buildings:
  • a 12-storey apartment building;
  • a 3-storey townhouse building;
• the addition of 122 new market-rental units in the two new buildings;
• a proposed total denisty of 3.56 FSR;
• 89,129 sq. ft. of new floor area

Mayan Apartments, a 16-unit apartment building at West 3rd and Maple Street in Kits, has sold for $4,275,000, or a 3.9% cap rate and $267,000 per unit. The building had been listed for sale for $4,785,000.

PWC’s annual Emerging Trends in Real Estate 2014 report was released this week. The annual report surveys industry professionals and rates Canada’s nine largest commercial real estate markets on prospects for investment, development and homebuilding.

This year the survey placed Vancouver fourth, just slightly behind Saskatoon, and behind the energy-driven markets of Calgary and Edmonton; in first and second respectively.

Perhaps not surprisingly, respondents placed Vancouver firmly in buy/hold territory for most asset classes in 2014. Here are a couple of examples:

Apartment Buy/Sell/Hold Recommendations

Office Buy/Sell/Hold Recommendations

Download the full report here: http://www.pwc.com/ca/en/real-estate/emerging-trends-real-estate-canadian-summary.jhtml