Posted Jun 2, 2025, 10:44 PM
|
|
Registered User
|
|
Join Date: Dec 2015
Posts: 15,807
|
|
For the new PCI building in Mount Pleasant
Quote:
During the public hearing last week that concluded with City Council’s unanimous approval of the rezoning application, PCI president Tim Grant emphasized this is a project that seeks to meet longer-term demand for such employment spaces, and within a location that is uniquely positioned to attract major businesses.
“We think it could be a strong, desirable anchor for resurgent globally competitive Mount Pleasant, particularly serving innovation industries and industrial urban industrial market segments,” said Grant.
“It remains a challenging commercial leasing market, particularly for office. However, we are optimistic that a development such as this will be an attractive, globally-competitive option, particularly for innovation industry businesses that the city aspires to attract the Mount Pleasant,” continued Grant, noting that the next step after the rezoning approval will be to “try and secure the type of businesses that the City desperately wants us to pursue in this area.”
However, Grant asserts that the City needs to expand the range of allowable uses within creative/light industrial spaces to accommodate a broader variety of businesses. These large, flexible open spaces make up more than half of the complex’s floor area. He noted there is “little to no demand” for industrial space located above the ground floor under the current classification, as the limitations are tied to operational logistics and function rather than actual market demand.
Moreover, the “allowable industrial uses as currently defined are [a] seemingly insurmountable barrier to project viability,” continued Grant, adding that his company does “not expect to be able to overcome this without broadening and allowable industrial uses.”
Blair Quinn, a vice chairman of commercial real estate firm CBRE, told City Council during the public hearing that based on his extensive experience in leasing the area’s office and industrial spaces, only a very limited number of businesses would fit into the current industrial use classification, such as AbCellera, Aspect Biosystems, and Rad Power Bikes.
He asserted that some of Vancouver’s restrictions and other challenges are leading some businesses to open up elsewhere in the region.
They fit into the zoning “without paying expensive consultants, [and] taking long lead times, which has driven a lot of these modern tech companies to other cities like Richmond and Burnaby.”
Quinn also argued that the requirement for extra-high ceilings — 17 ft. in height — for much of the project’s industrial space is unnecessary for the laboratory needs of the life sciences sector. He noted that this design specification significantly increases construction costs in a way that is ultimately uneconomical. While acknowledging that life sciences is a strategic growth sector, he cautioned that it remains relatively small industry, and the special design considerations being mandated for such projects may be excessive.
|
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/4-36-wes...-pleasant-pci-office-industrial-approved
|
Prev
Linear Mode
