CREDIT: Peter Battistoni, Vancouver Sun Sales coordinator Patricia Glass views a model of Langara Green townhome project, which is being built in Vancouver’s Oakridge neighbourhood.

LANGARA GREEN

Presentation centre: 325 West 59th, Vancouver

Hours: Noon to 5 p.m., Saturday to Thursday

Telephone: 604-301-0890

Website: www.langaragreen.com

Developer: Langara Development Corp.

Architect: Integra Architects

Project size: 43 townhouses

Townhouse size: 1,300 – 1,535 sq. feet

Price: $489,000 to almost $557,000

Construction: Wood frame

Warranty: St. Paul Guarantee

Of all Langara Green’s attractions, and the townhouse project on the southern extremity of Vancouver’s Oakridge neighbourhood possesses many, the most compelling, perhaps, are the size of the residences.

“People are accepting of our sizes because we are bigger for families coming from apartments, yet for couples looking to downsize from their westside home, we are large enough for their needs,” reports Patricia Glass of Platinum Project Marketing Group, Macdonald Realty, and the project’s marketer.

The 43 homes range in size from a little over 1,300 square feet to 1,535 square feet, over three storeys. Bedrooms number either three or four.

“We were motivated to ‘size up’ because the target-market demographic are families with high-school-aged or college-aged offspring,” Glass says. “Churchill high school and Langara College are reasons for many families to buy in this project. We realized that we were not looking for young professional couples, which is why we have three levels rather than four.”

Langara Green is located on West 59th just east of Cambie (on a site once occupied by a long-closed private hospital and across the street from an 18-year-old multi-residence project). Churchill high school is located on Heather Street at West 57th, to the north and west of Langara Green; the college on West 49th, to the north and east. (Sexsmith elementary is almost next door, to the east.)

Indeed, the 12 townhouses that have a bedroom on the first storey; a secondary entrance on that storey; and the master bedroom two storeys above are Langara Green’s equivalent of all those single-family homes on the westside whose basements have made living at home while going to school bearable – for parents and children — over the years. Further, the presence of a full bathroom on that first storey presents the owners of these 12 with the opportunity to at least consider turning the first storey into a renewable suite.

Because they will be located atop a parking garage, all 43 townhouses will be built without attached garages, one of the components typical of townhouse residency. (The others are separate exterior entrances and no neighbours above or below.) The gated garage will be entered from Columbia Street and makes possible a generous two parking spots, side by side, for each residence, Glass commented.

Not that the certainty of a walk from a common garage has hurt sales. The developer offered 30 residences for sale in September and sold 24 in four weeks. Langara and Platinum are now in the process of bringing the remaining 13 to market.

Wilson Tsang, the project’s sales manager, advances at least half a dozen reasons for his success.

CREDIT: Peter Battistoni, Vancouver Sun John Chan in the presentation centre for the Langara Green town homes project. Chan and his family have purchased a unit.

Firstly, Langara Green is the first “major” townhouse development in the neighbourhood in more than 15 years. Put another way, it is the first opportunity in more than 15 years to acquire Oakridge residency without the usual obligations of Oakridge residency, the expensive downpayment and mortgage payments on, and maintenance of, a westside single-family home.

One block west of Langara Green, a bungalow on a lot 50 feet wide and 120 feet deep and built almost 50 years ago was on offer last week for $698,000. A few blocks east and south of Langara Green, a bungalow on a lot 36 feet wide and 112 feet deep and built, again, almost 50 years ago was on offer for $549,000. (The latter is located in Marpole; the former in the MLS neighbourhood of “south Cambie.”)

The Langara Green townhouses range in price from $489,000 to almost $557,000, with Tsang championing the average $354/square foot selling price as the best new-construction townhouse value on the westside.

Langara Green backs on to the Langara Golf Course, to the north, and is across West 59th from Winona Park, to the south. The “Ontario [Street] Greenway,” connecting False Creek and the Fraser River (almost), is a few blocks to the east.

“It’s a quiet residential neighbourhood, but very convenient – five minutes to Oakridge Centre, 10 minutes to the airport, one bus to downtown,” Tsang says.

“Craftsman-style” construction and by a developer with a history of townhouse construction are other attractions, in Tsang’s opinion. Langara Development Corp. is owned by David Morfitt, a developer with more than 25 years in the business.

Tsang reports that buyers are typically westside residents and are typically either empty nesters intent on downsizing or adults in their 40s with children.

John Chan is a typical and atypical Langara Green buyer. He is a westside resident and he is downsizing, from a “very large” single family home. However, he is not an empty-nester and he is not in his 40s. He is 58 and he and his wife are expecting their second child.

“We wanted a neighbourhood with more kids” than in First Shaughnessy, where the family currently resides, and they wanted a “viable” neighbourhood, meaning a neighbourhood in which property values will inevitably rise.

The quietude of the Langara Green neighbourhood and its proximity to two of Vancouver‘s important north-south arteries, Cambie and Main streets, are among Chan’s predictors of property appreciation.

“It’s not the most luxurious, but it’s good value for the money,” the restaurant-owner (and former Hong Kong real-estate executive) commented. His Stonegrill restaurant, on the north shore of False Creek, is about 22 minutes away at the start of his work day – for most people, evening rush hour — and 10 minutes at the end. “I work in reverse.”

One look was all it took to persuade Chan his family’s future is located in a three-bedroom Langara Green townhouse.

One of the veterans of real-estate sales locally (and a founder of Platinum Project Marketing Group), George Wong, said of his company’s latest project: “In my opinion, this is the first time in 16 years I have seen such a family-friendly project in the Langara area.”

© The Vancouver Sun 2004