highwater

Vancouver’s West Broadway is in the midst of a ‘land rush’ - The Globe and Mail
Equipment Co-op store that is due to move in a
couple of years.
The property, currently valued at $47-million,
was acquired by his company last June for a
price that doesn’t appear in B.C. land records.
Another noted land deal along the corridor was
the purchase by the long-established
Vancouver family, the Pappajohns, of the
Denny’s restaurant site on Broadway three
blocks west of the IHOP site.
That was purchased for $26-million, double the
2015 assessed value, in February this year.
Besides those purchases, the City of Vancouver
and TransLink, the transportation agency that
will be building and operating the Broadway
line, have bought pieces of land at key
locations, several sources say.
But one problem with the early buying at high
prices is that it may actually hinder
development, at a time when Vancouver is
suffering from a severe squeeze on housing.
Both house prices and rents have been soaring
in the past year, as existing and new residents,
along with investors, have competed hard for
the slow-growing supply of housing.
Some of the current speculation is “stripping
more supply out of the market,” says Avison
Young principal Mehdi Shokri. “Transit is
supposed to be helping spur development, but
we’re going to find we’re adding more pressure
to the supply problem,” he says.
As a result, he says, sites west of where the
new line is supposed to stop are seeing more
development activity because builders there
know there is likely to be no change, so they’re
proceeding on the basis of the current zoning.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/property-report/vancouvers-west-broadwayis-in-the-midst-of-a-land-rush/article31494096/[26/09/2016 11:59:03 AM]