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.

…read more

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

A federal Crown corporation and three Lower Mainland First Nations announced Wednesday a long-awaited and “historic” agreement to acquire and develop some of the most valuable real estate in the country.

Canada Lands Company and the three First Nations will be 50-50 owners of three properties, including the 21-hectare Jericho Lands in Vancouver’s exclusive West Point Grey neighbourhood.

While financial details of the sale weren’t immediately available, realtors speculated earlier this year that the re-development and sale of the Jericho Lands alone could fetch $1.1 billion to $1.7 billion, depending on how the city re-zoned the land for development.

The other two properties are the 8.5 hectare “Heather Street Lands” between West 33rd and West 37th avenues, and a former fisheries department-owned property located on two hectares of land in West Vancouver on Marine Drive near Burkehill Road.

The announcement was made by Canada Lands, a federal government-owned entity that buys and develops surplus federal properties, and the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations.

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/metro/Jericho+Lands+Vancouver+finally+sold+deal+develop+high+real/10252565/story.html

Beedie Living has filed a rezoning application for an 18,287 SF site it acquired in 2013 at 105 Keefer Street and 544 Columbia Street. The proposal is for a 14-storey mixed-use building that includes:

• 137 residential units;
• commercial space on the ground and 2nd levels;
• a total density of 7.92 FSR;
• three levels of underground parking; and
• a height 127 ft.

Allied REIT isn’t quite as active in Vancouver as out East, but a notable buyer nonetheless…

By Paul Brent

For many real estate companies, it has been a tough year to complete acquisitions.

That has definitely not been the case for Allied Properties REIT (AP.UN-T), which last month announced two more deals to increase its 2014 tally to $225 million.

While the frenetic deal-making activity may have taken many observers by surprise, Allied anticipated the dam would break this year, according to Michael Emory, the REIT’s president and chief executive. “We got a sense late last year and early this year that the pace of acquisitions was going to pick up. It was more a function of availability than anything else.”

The REIT, known for acquiring older, trendy office space in the downtown cores of major Canadian cities, has racked up seven purchases so far this year, the latest two in Toronto: 555 Richmond Street West and 460 King St. W.

That’s a change for Allied Properties REIT.

Stabilized rental property

“I don’t think that we acquired anything much in Toronto, especially in terms of the stabilized rental property portfolio, last year or the year before that,” said Emory. “We did, of course, acquire The Well with RioCan and Diamond …read more

Source:: RENX