The building at 1424 West Broadway, better known at the Joeys Broadway location, has sold for $14,300,000. It had been marketed for sale by Colliers in the summer and received multiple offers.

The property is leased to Joey Broadway and generates an income of $228,000. The site area is 15,265 SF and the zoning is C-3A. The buyer was a local investor.

It’s no secret that municipal election season generally means a slowdown in the approval process for developers throughout Metro Vancouver. Rezoning applications in particular can represent an undesirable political issue that most mayors and councilors would prefer not to deal with during a re-election campaign, and planning staff usually direct rezoning applicants accordingly, regardless of whether the application would be contentious at a public hearing.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the City of Vancouver. With most rezoning applications publicized in the media, and with well-organized community groups speaking at most large-scale rezoning public hearings, staff and council have been reticent and discouraging of new applications over the past several months. Vision Vancouver has a well known track record of approving almost every rezoning application that staff brings forward, but that is a topic for another discussion…

Here’s a look at the volume of rezoning applications at the City of Vancouver during Vision’s most recent term in office:

Disclaimer: This graph represents rezoning application filings only, and only the most recent applications where projects have been revised. Only a portion of these applications have been approved to date. This is not official City of Vancouver data and I make no guarantees as to its accuracy.

Of note, rezoning applications have been scarce over the past few months after a 3-year high earlier in the year, and perhaps not coincidentally, there have been few truly contentious rezoning applications that would stir up opposition. Smartly, the City is taking time with rezonings in new plan areas such as Marpole and the West End where the communities are still coming to terms with the realities of densification, albeit only moderate densification in most areas.

Rest assured there is a queue of developers that are waiting to file applications after the election. The number that are able to do so early in the new year will be at least partially dependent upon the how Council looks after November 15th.

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