I am pleased to have acted on behalf of the Vendor in the sale of Cranberry Lane, an 88-unit apartment complex in the Hamilton area of Richmond.

Oxford Properties has formally applied to rezone their property at 1133 Melville Street; a 30,510 SF site currently occupied by a 7-storey parkade and office building topped with two floors of vacant multi-residential.

The project, rumoured for the last couple of years, calls for a 33-storey office building with retail at grade, including:

• a building height of 524 ft.;
• 658,687 SF of office and retail space;
• a density of 22.65 FSR; and
• 287 underground parking spaces.

This rezoning application is being considered under the Rezoning Policy for the Central Business District (CBD) and CBD Shoulder, General Policy for Higher Buildings and Rezoning Policy for Sustainable Large Developments.

Once completed, it will be one of the tallest and largest office buildings in Vancouver. Comparable nearby shorter towers include Bentall 5, which contains 583,000 SF of office space; Park Place at 596,000 SF; and Bentall IV at 548,000 SF.

The architect team of KPF and Kasian, describes the project in the application:

The project stands at 33 storeys. Typical floor plates are approximately 20,000 SF with a five storey bustle on the west side of the tower separating the tower volume from the adjacent Loden Hotel and providing 5 floors with a 23,000 SF floor plate. The ground floor is programmed with both lobby and active retail space.”

Oxford acquired the property in 2010 for $27,650,000. The property was previously owned by Amacon who developed the Loden Hotel next door. Amacon had originally planned a hotel and office tower project on the property, but later elected to sell it.

A rezoning application in North Vancouver intends to replace two low-density apartment buildings with a new 6-storey rental apartment building and could be a good model for other rental projects in the City of North Vancouver and elsewhere in the Lower Mainland.

The proposal for the 12,014 SF site at 362-368 East 3rd Street is to replace two older apartment buildings with a combined total of 11 apartments, with 40 rental units in a new 6-storey building. The proposed density is 2.6 FSR per the recently adopted OCP for the area. The plan includes only 9 parking stalls on the surface at the rear of the new building.

The unit mix includes:

• Nine 3-bedroom units
• Ten 2-bedroom units
• Six 1-bedroom units
• Fifteen studio unit

Because the proposed project is 100% secured rental housing, there will be no community amenity contribution.

Current Site Condition

The application is still preliminary and requires council approval to move through the standard rezoning process.

A highly coveted office building and adjacent development site has sold to Peterson Group for $41,000,000. The property, located at the corner of Granville and West 10th Avenue, was owned by BMO and offered for sale by BMO through Form Retail in the spring of 2015.

The offering included the 5-storey, 45,000 SF office building built in 1973 on the corner anchored by BMO, and the adjacent 16,000 SF parking lot, which can be developed under the current RM-3 zoning. It was anticipated that BMO would enter into a 10-year leaseback as part of the deal.

A 45-unit Richmond apartment complex known as Cook Place Apartments has sold for $11,700,000 to a local investor. The price represents $260,000 per unit and a cap rate of 3.3%. The property is ideally situated near the City Centre area of Richmond, just one and half blocks East of Richmond Centre Mall and a short walk to the Canada Line.

The building itself is a 3-storey woodframe building built in 1979, with underground parking. There are 30 Two-Bedroom units and 15 One-Bedroom units. Rents were approximately 10% under market. The property was listed with an asking price of $11,888,000.