City planners, developers look to the east for space to build
Bruce Constantineau
Sun
Bob Rennie will be marketing the Woodward’s building in the near future. Photograph by : Ward Perrin, Vancouver Sun
If you don’t believe residential development in downtown Vancouver has taken a sharp turn to the east, consider this — more than 3,000 people have already signed up to preview 536 condo units that go on sale next month at the $300-million Woodward’s project near Hastings and Abbott.
Add the surging residential development activity taking place in nearby Gastown and Chinatown, and the trend is obvious.
“I said two years ago that the city was going to move to the east, but it didn’t take a genius to figure that out,” said Vancouver realtor Bob Rennie. “It had nowhere else to go.”
Rennie, who is marketing the Woodward’s condo units for developers Westbank Projects and Peterson Investment Group, said development sites in the western half of the downtown core are scarce now so city planners and developers are eagerly looking eastward.
“If you’ve lived in Vancouver all your life, you might look at [the Woodward’s project] as a questionable part of town,” he said in an interview. “But if you’ve lived in any other big city, you recognize these as emerging areas.”
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. senior market analyst Cameron Muir said increased demand for housing sites in that part of town will likely drive land prices higher and he expects the Woodward’s project — due for completion by the spring of 2009 — to be the “anchor tenant” that attracts other developments to the area.
“Once you see a critical mass [of new housing projects] achieved, then you see prices going up,” he said.
Muir said developers and buyers who invest in new housing in non-traditional areas might be taking a bit of a gamble, but the risks can be reduced with proper research.
“Any new development that opens up first has a certain amount of risk,” he said. “Values may not climb or may not be as firm as areas that are more established. But the first ones into a new area obviously pay less than those that come later, so that’s a mitigating factor.”
The Woodward’s condominiums will sell for prices ranging from about $250,000 to $600,000 for 600-square-foot to 1,100-square-foot units. Rennie has run full-page and two-page newspaper ads promoting the development since November and feels he probably doesn’t need to advertise any more, as 3,000-plus potential buyers have already signed up.
“I don’t need this many people on a database,” he said.
The Woodward’s development will contain a total of 536 market condominiums in two towers, of 41 storeys and 32 storeys. The larger tower features a 4,600-square-foot lounge and fitness centre on the top floor and the project will also be home to the new Simon Fraser University School for the Performing Arts.
It will also contain 200 units of social housing and retail amenities, such as an 18,000-square-foot drug store and a 25,000-square-foot grocery store.
“You need anchors like that to make it livable,” Rennie said. “In my view, Concord Pacific [on the north shore of False Creek] really didn’t work until they put in Urban Fare. You need a place to buy milk and bread when you get home from work.”
Rennie himself plans to follow the eastward trek in about a year when he moves his offices from Hornby Street to a renovated 117-year-old Wing Sang building on East Pender. He said it’s a multi-million-dollar investment he’s making to be closer to the residential action downtown.
He noted other new developments in the area include a 500-unit condo project near Tinseltown, a renovation taking place at Five West Pender, another redevelopment of 75 East Pender and several Gastown projects being developed by Vancouver entrepreneur Robert Fung, including the Terminus project at 36 Water Street.
Muir said developers will be challenged to match the numbers of new downtown condos built in previous developments because new popular areas like Gastown and Chinatown have height restrictions and heritage aspects that will restrict the scope and speed of future projects. The city will also require social housing in may developments, which will reduce the number of new market housing units.
“The goal is to have people from all socio-economic backgrounds living in reasonable proximity to each other, so they don’t have to commute long distances to work every day,” Muir said. “So people who work at Starbucks should be able to live in Vancouver, just like the people who own Starbucks.”
While real estate sales on the Greater Vancouver Multiple Listing Service dipped slightly last month, Rennie noted the downtown condo market remains strong because there’s not an oversupply of units and buyers and investors remain confident.
“They may get a low rate of return on their rental income but they’re looking for capital appreciation down the road,” he said.
Rennie expects about 10 per cent of Woodward’s condo buyers to be international investors from Europe, Asia or the U.S.
© The Vancouver Sun 2006
