Guildford Town Centre’s $280-million renovation driven by bid for young shoppers.

METRO VANCOUVER — The kids have wallets, and they don’t want to wait. As Surrey’s Guildford Town Centre unveils a $280-million expansion this week — with 70 new stores and a 1,034-seat food court — general manager Peggy White says that online shopping does not pose a real threat to modern shopping centres like hers.

When fashion-conscious 15- to 25-year olds go shopping, “they want to take (their purchase) home and wear it that night. Sometimes they wear it right out of the store,” White said.

Guildford owner/developer Ivanhoe Cambridge has assembled a sparkling new mix of stores — including Forever 21 (at 23,000 square feet), H&M (25,000 square feet), Victoria’s Secret, Sephora, Aritzia, The Lego Store and Disney Store — to woo young shoppers back from the glitter of downtown Vancouver’s Robson Street and Burnaby’s Metrotown.

The expansion increases retail space to 1.2 million square feet from 980,000, and includes a facelift for the existing mall, with waterfalls, soft seating, a much larger food court, and a giant 10,000-plant living wall that covers a connector straddling 104th Ave.

I’m pleased to announce the sale of 2116 West 41st Avenue, a 2-storey retail/apartment building on West 41st Avenue in Kerrisdale. The purchase price was $6,650,000, representing $542 per SF and a 4.2% cap rate.

STELLARTON, N.S. — Empire Company Ltd. announced a plan Wednesday to sell 68 Safeway properties in a sale-leaseback deal with Crombie REIT for $990 million in cash.

The company, which owns the country’s second-largest grocer Sobeys Inc., said the properties involved in the sale are located in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

Metro Vancouver Properties Sold:

In early June, Empire signed an agreement to buy more than 200 grocery stores from Canada Safeway Ltd. in a $5.8-billion deal. At the time, it said that it intended to finance the acquisition with a $1 billion sale-leaseback that it would first offer to Crombie REIT.

“We are pleased to announce this sale leaseback transaction between Sobeys and Crombie REIT,” Empire president and chief executive Paul Sobey said in a statement.

“The sale proceeds will be used by Sobeys to assist in the funding of the Canada Safeway acquisition which provides Sobeys with a much stronger presence in Western Canada and allows them to benefit from increased economies of scale.”

Read more: http://business.financialpost.com/2013/07/24/empire-sells-68-safeway-properties-to-crombie-reit-in-990m-deal/

The Vancouver Honda dealership property at 850 SW Marine Drive has sold for $12,925,000 to Value Group Properties. The 2.1 acre site has over 460 feet of frontage on SW Marine Drive and a 2-storey, 45,621 square foot auto retail building occupied by Vancouver Honda. The dealership will lease back the property. The zoning for the property is I-2.

Small-business owners want B.C.’s new Christy Clark government to intervene in the marketplace and limit rent increases on commercial properties. The proposed changes to the province’s Commercial Tenancy Act would kick in when leases for small-business owners expire and would be aimed at providing property rent stability for independent businesses.

The idea of rent control, however, has plenty of critics because it flies in the face of free enterprise.

“There are reasons to regulate commercial leases,” said Mary Brookes, who owns Sophie’s Pet Palace on Commercial Drive. “One is to protect small businesses who employ locally, use local suppliers and create jobs, which has spinoff benefits.”

Vancouver Island University geography professor Don Alexander, who has co-written papers on the concept of commercial rent control, agreed.

“Small businesses contribute an enormous amount to the local economy because the money circulates more than if it goes to a chain store,” he said. “Small businesses are a benefit to social well-being and possibly to environmental well-being, so there’s a rationale in not allowing these guys to be as scarce as hen’s teeth.”