125 Agnes Street, a 19-unit apartment building in New Westminster has been sold for $2,100,000, or $110,000 / 4.5% cap rate.

Developing Story: Musqueam showcase preferred option for development on endowment lands.

The preferred option for the Musqueam Indian Band’s development of a 22-acre site on University Endowment Lands was presented at an open house last night.

The band plans to develop a site known as Block F between University Boulevard and Acadia Road, land which was returned by the provincial government under a 2008 reconciliation agreement. The open house is part of the pre-application process.

The preferred option envisions a commercial village of 30,000 square feet, a four-storey 120-room hotel, residential buildings, including three-storey town homes, four-to-six storey buildings, and four towers between 18 to 22 storeys, as well as open spaces in the form of trails, parks and village greens, according to Gordon Easton, project manager at Colliers International.

Easton added it allows for the mature stand of trees to remain with the wetlands in the centre of the site.

“That’s something we heard quite strongly from the community and the Pacific Spirit Park Society — that that was something they’d really like to see and also respecting the current trail network connections that exist on the site,” he said.

Thursday marks the third open house for the project — about 300 attended the first open house in early December and another 170 attended the second one in early February. Almost 1,300 views have been recorded to date for the Block F topic on PlaceSpeak, an online community consultation site.

Richmond Review – Steveston Secondary on the block, again.

As many as 20 developers are in the mix as potential suitors for the former 13-acre home of Steveston secondary school on No. 2 Road, which is once again on the sales block.

For the past five years or so, the Ministry of Education has placed a moratorium on the sale of school lands to parties other than independent school operators. And with the local school board opting not to sell to an independent school, the Steveston site has remained unsold.

But the prospects for a sale changed earlier this month, when B.C. Education Minister Don McRae wrote to the district that it would extend the completion period for the sale and transfer of title for the Steveston Secondary School site until March 31, 2015.

For the past month, the Richmond school district has sought expressions of interest for the site from developers as well as 75 other parties who previously expressed an interested in the land, Sargent said.

Read more: http://www.richmondreview.com/news/203484941.html

With one month left until the provincial election, it appears to be business as usual as far as transaction activity in the Vancouver commercial real estate market.

As we asked a couple of months ago, “does a change in government matter?” and at least from an investment and development perspective over the last 60 days, the answer is seemingly no, at least not until there is a confirmed change in government.

The latest EKOS poll shows the NDP leading with 39.3% of intended voters, with the BC Liberals at 27.3%, followed by the Greens at 16.2% and the BC Conservatives at 13.4%.

Source: BC Election 2013 Blog

As a reminder of our previous analysis, here is a look at some market indicators showing the contrast in economic performance between each party’s stay in power. Each chart has been divided to show the two parties’ terms in power (since 1995), as follows:

Cap Rates

Capitalization rates take into account many more external factors (federal interest rates, for example), and have shown compression in other markets in Canada, but Vancouver has witnessed cap rates drop moreso than others amid continued strength in the local and provincial economy since the early 2000’s.

Housing Starts

Developers will appreciate this one. After a stagnant housing market in the late 90’s, construction in Vancouver (and B.C.) went on an unprecedented run between 2002 and 2008 shortly after Gordon Campbell was elected in 2001. Of course, the global downturn in 2008/2009 put the brakes on the market, but it has bounced back relatively well despite recent forecasts of a prolonged slowdown (perhaps due to lack of confidence and risk in the provincial outlook for 2014 and beyond?)

Source: Statistics Canada

Office Vacancy Rates and Rents

Many will remember a period in the early 2000’s when new office construction wasn’t a topic of conversation in the local commercial real estate industry. In fact, confidence was so bad in 2002 with the vacancy rate hovering around 15% that Bentall decided to halt construction of Bentall 5, now one of Vancouver’s most valuable towers, at half of its height and wait for the office market to improve.

Of course, the office market has always been cyclical irrespective of the political climate. It is largely impacted by macroeconomic factors; however, a look at the Downtown Vancouver office market in terms of rents and vacancy from 1995 to 2013 shows some marked contrast between the NDP and Liberal’s reign on the province.

A Market Forecast  Under Adrian Dix?

Stay tuned next month…