An application has been submitted for a 7,686 SF site  on East Pender Street near Commercial Drive in East Vancouver. The plan calls for a 5-storey  mixed-use building with two levels of office space and three levels of residential space containing 15 residential units and 14 underground parking stalls. The site is zoned MC-1, which conditionally allows a mix of uses.

The site, currently improved with a single storey industrial building, was acquired earlier this year for $1,830,000 by Epix Developments.

By Paul Brent

Considering Manulife Financial Corp.owns more than 38 million square feet of real estate worth valued at about $11 billion, it is easy to overlook component parts such as its relatively new Manulife Canadian Property Portfolio.

Established in 2011 as a co-mingled fund to hold diversified real estate for Canadian institutional investors it has grown to an impressive $600 million in assets in the four main property types.

A broad and balanced investment approach is at the heart of the fund’s offering, explained the executive in charge of the fund, Timothy Blair, Manulife Real Estate’s managing director and senior portfolio manager.

“We are really looking to grow that Canadian fund by investing in Canadian assets, we are looking to be geographically diversified across Canada and we invest in the four major asset classes: office, industrial, retail and multi-family – and we are also looking at some development deals.

“. . . a good and growing portfolio,” he added. “We really focus on what I would call quality assets.”

What it owns

Notable holdings of the Manulife fund include the 22-storey 736 – 6th Avenue SW in Calgary “a great little office building,” …read more

Source:: RENX

By ChangingCity

Here’s an office development on the 500 block of West Broadway that started construction just over 2 years ago. Designed by Studio One Architecture for Orca West (up to now a mainly residential developer) the project, initially known as the Neelu Barchra Centre, sits in the ‘Uptown’ commercial-only stretch of Broadway, close to the City Hall Canada Line station.

Initially marketed for lease, the scheme was switched to 127 strata office units and seems to have had far greater success as a result. The final building seems somehow more grey than the render suggested – although once the lights are on inside and the planting gets established it may be a closer match.

…read more

Source:: Changing City Updates

Here is an update of 980 Howe Street; an office building being built by Manulife at the corner of Howe and Nelson: