By ChangingCity

Here’s an office development on the 500 block of West Broadway that started construction just over 2 years ago. Designed by Studio One Architecture for Orca West (up to now a mainly residential developer) the project, initially known as the Neelu Barchra Centre, sits in the ‘Uptown’ commercial-only stretch of Broadway, close to the City Hall Canada Line station.

Initially marketed for lease, the scheme was switched to 127 strata office units and seems to have had far greater success as a result. The final building seems somehow more grey than the render suggested – although once the lights are on inside and the planting gets established it may be a closer match.

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Source:: Changing City Updates

Affordable mortgage rates and low numbers of residential vacancies are making 2014 “a breakout year” for sales of apartment buildings across Metro Vancouver.

The Goodman Report, a local newsletter covering multi-family investment property, notes that selling volumes have been robust, with prices per-suite in suburban Vancouver markets up 22 per cent over 2013, 13 per cent for buildings in the city.

“Sensing that business, political and economic signs remain positive, new buyers both offshore and local have been relentlessly pursuing older three-storey frame and highrise buildings for retrofit opportunities,” says the report.

Written by father-son realtors David and Mark Goodman, it predicts 125 apartment buildings will sell through 2014, with a total value exceeding $800 million.

With 61 buildings sold as of July, the pace of sales is 36 per cent ahead of a year ago, signalling what the Goodmans are labelling “a bullish breakout”.

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/Barbara+Yaffe+Bullish+market+Vancouver+apartment/10253586/story.html