Downtown Vancouver Updates

[vanman]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

Telus Garden crammed in 54 floors regardless of their height limit. And The Stack had no limits at all, but their "economic" height was apparently just seven metres taller than what they have now. Like or dislike the viewcones, they're not a massive obstacle to downtown's commercial capacity or attractiveness; we're not getting large office towers anywhere in the Lower Mainland - the "shaved" towers are almost all residential.

The Gilmore Place office tower proposed in Burnaby is substantially larger than The Stack. It says alot about the arbitrary limits constraining downtown when there is a market for an expensive 700,000 sqft office tower in the suburbs.

[Migrant_Coconut]

So the true economic size of a Vancouver office tower is The Stack, except one floor taller and about one city block's worth of space larger. Good to know.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by vanman

The Gilmore Place office tower proposed in Burnaby is substantially larger than The Stack. It says alot about the arbitrary limits constraining downtown when there is a market for an expensive 700,000 sqft office tower in the suburbs.

If the developers want to build any more residential towers, the Master Plan phasing requires the construction of the office space. "The site has been designed as one integrated development with the underground parking, commercial podium, office building and open spaces to proceed to construction first. The rezoning reports for the individual residential tower rezonings will be brought forward in due course when a plan of development suitable for presentation to a Public Hearing is achieved. It is noted that the subject rezoning must be advanced to Final Adoption as a prerequisite condition of the two residential components (Rezoning References #18-25 and #18-26).

The haven't built it yet, but presumably the cheapest way to build the required space, and the most likely to attract a back office operation that would find the location acceptable, is to build a big, cost-effective box. Which happens to be about the same height that Vancouver towers are being built to. Now all they have to do is find enough tenants to take the space...

[mcminsen]

Originally Posted by mcminsen

Sept.20 '19, my pic

Nov.25 '19, my pics

Originally Posted by x32ace

Images are courtesy of Oxford.


401-Aerial by Lots Pictures, on Flickr

401-Plaza by Lots Pictures, on Flickr

[vanman]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

So the true economic size of a Vancouver office tower is The Stack, except one floor taller and about one city block's worth of space larger. Good to know.

Originally Posted by Changing City

The haven't built it yet, but presumably the cheapest way to build the required space, and the most likely to attract a back office operation that would find the location acceptable, is to build a big, cost-effective box. Which happens to be about the same height that Vancouver towers are being built to. Now all they have to do is find enough tenants to take the space...

Clearly the limited supply of office space downtown is having an impact on suburban markets.

Western Investor

Over the next 12 to 24 months, the Metro Vancouver office market is expected to enter into a period of demand far outpacing the available supply, which will very likely continue to drive rental rates up to new heights. Strong demand and limited availability in downtown Vancouver has had a ripple effect on vacancy and rates in surrounding submarkets such as Yaletown, Gastown, False Creek Flats, Mount Pleasant and Burnaby, all of which have seen record-breaking rental rates as vacancy tightens throughout Metro Vancouver.

BIV

Some businesses, however, may be forced to search for options outside of B.C.’s largest downtown core.

Avison Young reports the lag until new buildings complete has led to “severely constrained market conditions” that are expected to persist until 2021, and likely into the first half of 2022. Gardner expects downtown leasing options to continue to creep lower over the next 24 months.

Companies have to get creative, he said, and give themselves enough time to meet their space needs.

“I would be very surprised if we saw a huge exodus from downtown to the suburbs because of where vacancy is. Will we see some? For sure, because some tenants will just have to look at other alternatives.”

RENX

Burnaby leads suburban markets
He said some tenants are “opting out” of the downtown office core, which is now flirting with sub-four per cent vacancy as the peninsula enters a new development lull that will last for the next two to three years.

“Large blocks of space just aren’t available (downtown),” he said. “We brought in over two million square feet of space since 2015. That’s all gone and now we’re back into a vacancy rate of about four per cent, and it’s getting tighter.”

Quattrin said pricing and availability are more attractive for some investors and renters in secondary markets, and especially so in Vancouver’s Eastern neighbour.

“Almost all of these trades were in Burnaby,” Quattrin said. “We’re seeing some interest in Metrotown. We’re seeing a lot of interest down in Willingdon Park. We’re seeing some interest up in Brentwood.”

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by vanman

Clearly the limited supply of office space downtown is having an impact on suburban markets.

.

Sure it is - because that where there's a bit of space available currently - but not very much because just like nobody started building new offices Downtown soon enough to meet the recent surge in demand, they didn't build them in the suburbs either (or when they did, they're already taken, like Kings Crossing and the Sun Towers - and many are strata rather than lease buildings). Burnaby has the most AAA space available, but oddly, according to CBRE there's actually a slightly higher vacancy rate now than at the end of 2018, so clearly businesses aren't flocking to occupy the available space.

This conversation is probably more appropriate to the Office Market thread than the Downtown thread.

[vanman]

Originally Posted by Changing City

.
This conversation is probably more appropriate to the Office Market thread than the Downtown thread.

True enough.

[LeftCoaster]

Originally Posted by Migrant_Coconut

At any rate, Toronto, Boston, even Manhattan, they're all looking into limiting shadows on parks. Vancouver's simply unfortunate enough to have been first to the party... and right when the city started to grow big.

Toronto and New York have had them for ages. Most cities in North America have shadowing limits over parks and schools, they are a good thing, it just really starts to pile up in Vancouver when we have view cones, park shadowing restrictions, sidewalk shadowing restrictions etc...

Originally Posted by VancouverOfTheFuture

limiting shadows on a park is okay, completely banning them is dumb. i remember reading about a building here a while back where they chopped it down because for a brief period of the year it shadowed a small corner of the park for like 12mins. and that part of the park already had trees that made shade. it was something ridiculous like that.

Agreed, there is a happy middle ground where common sense needs to prevail and a tower not block a park entirely, but not be cut down because of 15 minutes in the middle of December.

Originally Posted by vanman

The Gilmore Place office tower proposed in Burnaby is substantially larger than The Stack. It says alot about the arbitrary limits constraining downtown when there is a market for an expensive 700,000 sqft office tower in the suburbs.

Well it's not even approved yet so no saying there is a market or not.

Originally Posted by Changing City

.

Sure it is - because that where there's a bit of space available currently - but not very much because just like nobody started building new offices Downtown soon enough to meet the recent surge in demand, they didn't build them in the suburbs either (or when they did, they're already taken, like Kings Crossing and the Sun Towers - and many are strata rather than lease buildings). Burnaby has the most AAA space available, but oddly, according to CBRE there's actually a slightly higher vacancy rate now than at the end of 2018, so clearly businesses aren't flocking to occupy the available space.

Also worth noting large towers take longer to come online so if we are looking to provide capacity relief downtown it's faster to build 3x30 storey office buildings than 1 60 storey office building.

[cyclinginvancouver]

Rezoning Application - 443 Seymour Street (601 West Pender Street)

The City of Vancouver has received an application to rezone 443 Seymour Street from Downtown (DD) District to Comprehensive Development (CD-1) District to allow for a 29-storey commercial office building. The proposal includes:

Commercial retail units at grade (5,561 sq. ft.)
Office space on levels 2 to 29 (395,285 sq. ft)
8 levels of underground parking containing 201 parking spaces, 5 passenger spaces, 6 Class A loading spaces, 2 Class B loading spaces, and 246 bicycle spaces
Total floor area of 445,350 sq. ft.
Building height of 337.5 ft.
Floor space ratio (FSR) of 22.9
This application is being considered under the Rezoning Policy for the Central Business District (CBD) and CBD Shoulder.

A community open house will be held on January 22, 2020 from 4:30 pm - 7:00 pm in Room 420 at the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue, Simon Fraser University (580 W Hastings Street). City staff and the applicant team will be available to answer questions.

Rezoning Application - 443 Seymour Street (601 West Pender Street)

[uzi]

^design is amazing. i just wish it was 7-10 storeys taller.

[VancouverOfTheFuture]

Originally Posted by uzi

^design is amazing. i just wish it was 7-10 storeys taller.

i like it, though very small for being in the Central Business District...

[scryer]

Originally Posted by VancouverOfTheFuture

i like it, though very small for being in the Central Business District...

Yah man.... I am just sitting here like: are they planning on rezoning more land for CBD or will it remain the tiniest sliver of zoning for the rest of time?

[rofina]

Originally Posted by scryer

Yah man.... I am just sitting here like: are they planning on rezoning more land for CBD or will it remain the tiniest sliver of zoning for the rest of time?

I don't get it either.

That being said, constrains for building in Vancouver are greater than just land availability.

There is a reason local developers are bringing small towers to market and its not all to do with view cones.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by VancouverOfTheFuture

i like it, though very small for being in the Central Business District...

It's 445,000 sq ft of total space and will be 22.9 FSR. That's not really 'small'. It's also a very large investment. The site cost $126 million, and construction (445,000 sq. ft. x $497 per sq. ft.) is over $220 million - so this building will cost Reliance over a third of a billion dollars.

[VancouverOfTheFuture]

Originally Posted by scryer

Yah man.... I am just sitting here like: are they planning on rezoning more land for CBD or will it remain the tiniest sliver of zoning for the rest of time?

the CBD used to be much larger, it has been consistently shrinking over time. it is time to start expanding it again. we have more than enough over priced crappy condos. the CoV should increase the size of the CBD to show businesses that Vancouver is actually open to more than just condos and a service industry economy.

[dleung]

Something seems off. How does one fit 29 stories of office in 337 feet?

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by dleung

Something seems off. How does one fit 29 stories of office in 337 feet?

With 11'6" ceilings.

[osirisboy]

That's a decent fsr

[dleung]

Originally Posted by Changing City

With 11'6" ceilings.

That's including the slab. That's low even by old class B office building standards

[cov]

really time to upzone the mount pleasant industrial area. Turn that land into 8 fsr. That area is already office anyway. The industrial businesses that are left either own their land or are sitting on teardowns for pure speculative purposes. Quaint esthetics at this point is doing more harm than good. I get that a lot of architecture firms are there at the moment, and they like their setup, but with the way rents going up they won't be staying for long.