What Lured Manulife To Burnaby?
Manulife Real Estate Fund made its first office play in B.C. last week, snapping up 3383 Gilmore Way, a 146k SF LEED Platinum building in Burnaby. Manulife Canadian Property Portfolio manager Tim Blair tells us what drew his team to the town where Michael J. Fox grew up. (You don't even need a Delorean to get there.)
3383 Gilmore Way (pictured below) is Manulife’s first office acquisition in the province. Tim says the building’s appeal lies in its “strong tenant quality” (it’s 100% leased at the moment, with HSBC as anchor tenant) and stable cash flow. Plus the acquisition enables the fund—with $550M in assets under management—to diversify its national portfolio, both in terms of geography and property type, Tim says. With the deal, Manulife Canadian Property Portfolio now holds 22 office and industrial buildings (or 3.1M SF of space) across the country.
Tim wouldn’t dish on how much Manulife paid for 3383 Gilmore Way, a five-storey building with floor plates up to 33k SF. But he notes that the property, one of four LEED CS Platinum-certified office buildings in Metro Vancouver, has systems that are among the "most advanced in the industry” (including a heat-reflecting roof, rainwater harvesting, and motion sensor lighting controls) helping generate operational cost savings while also being kind to Mother Nature. Developed by Morguard Investments in 2009, the property was originally known as Discovery Green Building.
