Duck Island looks very interesting, I sure hope it pans out! It's pretty ambitious, so hoping for the best!
6851 and 6871 Elmbridge hit on something I'm not keen on. The Oval District is actually insane to see, especially for a born and bred Richmond (Richmondite?) like me. I just checked Google Maps back to 2009 (the oldest they have of the area) and I was floored. And I know Richmond intimately, I am still there several days a week and all my family and a big chunk of my friends are there. Plus living there for the first 25 years of my life (I've been in Vancouver for 16 years now), and I grew up near what is now the Oval District, I was on #2 Rd just a bit further down. And yet I couldn't even remember exactly what was there before, what all of the buildings looked like (I remember some of course, but the photo was still shocking to see again). And for the most part, the new development was an improvement over the drab single story, usually under utilized properties that used to be there.
The transformation spread out from the original oval development and started changing the surrounding area too. Lost a couple small warehouses, a couple massive flooring/furniture warehouse type buildings (and likely struggling anyways), and then quite a few parking lots, a Fitness World, vacant buildings. So again, an improvement over the previous. The Epic Data and Ritchie Brothers buildings were the only new-ish larger buildings to come down I think, and even their locations made no sense, these random large buildings with fields in between on a quiet road with the waterfront right there. It was a perfect neighbourhood to flip to high density residential/retail without losing much.
But many of the commerical/light industrial/business park properties all down Elmbridge are still very much in use. Most properties look to be fully occupied with lots of activity ie. many are warehouses and always have trucks at the bays, even lots of containers backing into the bays, which suggests transloading. And the business park closest to #2 is really bustling, it houses a zillion different tenants of all kinds. There's even a restaurant in one of the business parks. So it's nothing like most of the other parts of the neighbourhood, and were mostly way under utilized. I understand this kind of presence in this area probably doesn't make much "sense" and a nice residential sweep would be more "appropriate". But this is a lot of commerical/light industrial that is very much still viable, it's tons and tons of individual businesses. It's basically forcing them to either go out of business, or struggle to find somewhere in a very tight market, especially for warehousing and transport. I know it's unrealistic, but I wish the sales contract stipulated that the residential developer buyer was required to find the commerical tenants comparable replacements without much change in rent. I think when a condo developer in Vancouver tears down an older rental in favour of condos, they have a large responsibility to displaced tenants, in terms of what they have to provide (ie. replacement rental units at similar prices, option of a unit in the new building maybe?). But I don't think anything is required when a landlord kicks of business in order to redevelop? But correct me if I'm wrong please.
But if they don't need to help or accomodate displaced commercial tenants, it's an absolute no brainer to build residential, the economics favour residential in that area. Around 8 and Blundell there's a lot of larger scale light industrial space under construction, but that is more for much larger operations like an Amazon Warehouse, or a Fedex facility, etc. The Elmbridge tenants are much smaller, more like ones who would be in projects like
8855 Laurel St.. The airport should be starting construction shortly on its business park located on Russ Baker Way between the Dinsmore Bridge and the BCIT campus. At least that's my hope, they've been busy with pre-load and earthworks over the last couple of months, so hopefully that means construction is near. But who knows, maybe they are just getting a head-start. But I feel like the rents at the new spot will be way higher than the old one being demolished. And based on the tenant directories at least, many of the business are small Asian-oriented establishments. It seems like a lot of trading/import/export kind of places, with Asian names and Chinese text. But they're not giant companies, getting evicted is likely a big deal for them, without alternatives to go to (ie. they wouldn't make sense in downtown towers) and they have strong links to Richmond. So the city should be at least working with the developer to accomodate the displaced businesses within the available space in Richmond. Any area it wouldn't matter, there's lots of business parks and light industrial in the north Richmond area, but they are leased up more or less I think, so there's probably enough slack in the overall market to accomodate
some. For example, Brighhouse West Business Park (the westernmost of this commerical zone, and the largest/most individual units) is 27 acres! That's way more than just an old single storey warehouse. So ya, I really hope there is a plan for the loss of these properties, otherwise you are dooming all but the largest business to give up their commercial space, and potentially go out of business completely.
I am usually the last person to oppose increased density and urban renewal, always hated NIMBY's and excessive bureaucracy from cities. Pro development you could definitely say. But these plans gobble up a massive amount of commerical/industrial spaces at a time when there's not much out there to compensate. And the Chinese community businesses in Richmond are very connected to Hong Kong, China, Taiwan. And although you might not see them in action or in the press, these business facilitate a lot of the strong links we like to brag about in BC. So they, along with all other tenants here, shouldn't be left in the wind.
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