Morguard Readies For Next Office Round

A re-zoning application for Morguard Investments' proposed office tower at 601 West Hastings St is now in front of the city. The company thinks the project will take advantage of the next round of office demand after the current phase of building construction is finished. (It's called office development surfing, and it's all the rage.)

"This is for the next cycle," Morguard's SVP development Margaret Knowles (with Morguard director of development for Western Canada Geoff Nagle) tells us. The city's response has been positive so far; Margaret says it comes down to its sustainable plans (LEED Gold) and the redesign of the parkette currently on the site. The 25-storey office space doesn't start until the fourth floor. The total floor area would be 227K SF, including over 3,500 SF of ground-level retail space. (We've been looking for a place to open a toy store.) Plans call for 102 parking spaces and 78 bicycle parking spaces. B+H Architects is overseeing the design of the project.

According to Margaret and Geoff, the market demand is more for regional offices, and the proposed tower would be more of a boutique-style. "There are few companies in Vancouver that take a head-office mindset where you would take a 20k SF footprint," she says, and 500 to 12k SF will be the building's sweet spot. This application--and the others in front of the city--show that the market to build office towers won't abate anytime soon. Workers are attached to transit, and they want to be downtown, Geoff says.

Allied Announces Office Deal

Allied director of leasing Tyrone Bowers told us this morning that Mobify—a company that makes websites mobile-phone compatible—has just leased 11k SF of space in Allied's 948 Homer St property in Yaletown. Allied has five properties in the city, all consistent with the company's core philosophy—close to or in the core and have very distinct external and internal design. (Office Space wasn't a comedy to them--it was a cautionary horror movie.)

Industrial And Retail Lead The Way

Commercial real estate investment in the region is down compared to last year--$1.2B from 261 transactions across all asset classes, according to a new Colliers report. (Just try to breath, everyone.) Industrial and retail assets remain the more desired class for investor dollars, says author and Colliers market intelligence coordinator Matt Dixon (above, with senior associate industrial Stefan Morissette).

In the industrial sector, limited, developable land is available and low vacancies are pushing values. Six of the top deals occurred in Richmond and Delta, totalling $222M (Above is 16111 Blundell Rd in Richmond, which sold for $32M.) "We're on pace to have another record year for overall dollar volume of sales, as cap rates remain historically low for quality assets," Stefan says. This is despite the fact that REITs have slowed their purchasing activity over the past few months partially due to rising cost of debt. "Demand from local capital and national institutions remains exceptionally strong in our region," he adds.

Study Analyzes Lack of Industrial Land

The push is on to make more land available for industrial development in Metro Vancouver, according to a NAIOP Vancouver report. NAIOP retained Pacific Land Resource Group to assess the short-term supply of land available to the marketplace. The objective: help ensure the key policymakers in Metro Vancouver have the info they need to guide their decisions with regard to the industrial land base. According to the report, 2,500 acres of industrial land is available for near-term development throughout Metro Vancouver. "The availability of vacant, developable industrial land is a key driver in the maintenance and growth of our economy," says CBRE VP industrial properties Chris MacCauley, who quarterbacked getting the report done.