Leasing Drives... Vacancy?
Vacancy increased over the past year due in part to the delivery of nearly 1.3M SF of new product in the Richmond market, according to Avison Young's Fall 2013 Richmond BC Industrial Report, released to Bisnow yesterday. That brought steady leasing activity. "Pockets of vacancy emerged as tenants moved from older, inefficient product within the market to new facilities or they left the municipality altogether," says AY VP Ryan Kerr, who specializes in Richmond sales and leasing transactions.
Richmond's industrial vacancy rate at mid-year 2013 was 4.7%, up from 2.8% in fall 2012. Industrial sales activity, however, slowed during the period. "A lack of available product and the declining availability of inexpensive debt financing have likely revealed the ceiling of the 36M SF market in terms of pricing," Ryan adds. (It's like making it to the end of a good book.) The largest industrial transaction in B.C. in the first half of 2013 was the sale of a distribution facility at 18111 Blundell Road for $44M. PIRET was the buyer; Kingswood Capital the seller.
