It’s been a great 5 years for owners of the City’s older office buildings. Amid near-record low vacancy and high rents, B and C Class buildings have enjoyed all-time high valuations in 2013, particularly those located in ‘hip’ areas like Yaletown and Gastown. This trend has been exhibited in a number of recent sales, including: 576 Seymour Street, 1445 West Georgia Street and 1112 West Pender, all of which sold at cap rates roughly half of what they would have been just 7 or 8 years ago. Are owners of older office buildings looking to cash out on gains? Well, not really….yet. While many would likely agree that there are risks to the outlook for office leasing fundamentals going forward, vacancy and rental rates are only beginning to feel negative pressure. Here’s a look at some trends in the leasing market:

B Class buildings in particular are expected to feel pressure as the upward movement of tenants throughout the market is fuelled by the new construction of AAA Class buildings downtown.

Compare that with the run-up in values over the past ten years:

Ten years ago, half-empty older downtown buildings often sold for as low as $100 per SF, and now they are trading often as high as new product in other markets. Cap rate compression in this subset has also reflected the market at large.

As leasing fundamentals are expected to show a more pronounced weakening around the same time that interest rates finally show upward movement (ie. early 2015), expect to see more activity in this subset of the commercial real estate market, with more sellers looking to cash out on existing tenancies, as well as renewed pressure for conversion to hotel or residential.

Conversion in particular is a much more difficult strategy than it was a decade ago, when the loss of older commercial space prompted the City of Vancouver to initiate a moratorium on the conversion or demolition of commercial space in core areas (the Metro Core Jobs Study).

VANCOUVER — A court-appointed receiver has sold the city-owned commercial properties that ring the Olympic Village’s main plaza for $45 million, and the head marketer expects the remaining residential units of the once-maligned neighbourhood to be fully sold by next September.

The city will receive a “significant distribution” from the sale of the properties — which house every business in the Village except the CRAFT Beer Market and Tap & Barrel bars — according to receiver Ernst & Young.

Tenants like London Drugs, Urban Fare, Legacy liquor store and Terra Breads will remain in place.

The city’s take from the sale to prominent mall owner First Capital Realty — which marketer Bob Rennie estimates is about 85 per cent after taxes and various fees for mortgages, maintenance, Ernst & Young’s work and his company’s marketing — will go toward paying down the rest of the $572-million loan it gave to Millennium Developments, which built the village on southeastern False Creek but then went into voluntary receivership in 2010.

Coun. Raymond Louie heralded the sale as “whittling” down the city’s debt. On Tuesday, neither he nor staff could provide the exact amount still owing, which was estimated to be around $300 million at the end of last year.

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

IMG_0059, a photo by blazzzinred [vancityhotshots] on Flickr.

New Nordstrom building under construction.

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.