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| Image: Wikipedia |
Vancouver’s Canada Post building has been sold to the British Columbia Investment Management Corporation (bcIMC), one of Canada’s largest institutional investment managers. The new landlord plans to redevelop the site. The building sold for $159million, according to a Land Titles Office search.
We previously reported on an expert’s speculation that the entire block will be razed for redevelopment. These were via two interviews (links to INTERVIEW 1 & INTERVIEW 2).
bcIMC spokeswoman Gwen-Anne Chittenden says: “Our vision is for a sustainable mixed-use development that will leverage the great transit and the nearby amenities that the site offers,” she said (to The Vancouver Sun).
That’s rather vague. We called the source to our previous articles to ask their opinion on the sale. Our source tells us that we can expect the developer to bring an application to Vancouver City Hall to have the site ‘upzoned’ for ‘maximum value’. The developer may then either ‘act on’ the density allowance by redeveloping the site or it may work out an agreement with the city to ‘transfer density’ from this site to one or more other future development sites, in return for retaining the architectural integrity of the current Canada Post building.
A local commercial real estate broker informs us that both Target and Walmart want stores in Downtown Vancouver. The same broker says the current Canada Post site would be ripe for a redevelopment that would include at least one large retailers. Larger-format retailers have increasingly been looking for sites in Canadian city cores, as we discussed in a previous article.
We will be watching the Canada Post Building’s redevelopment closely and will report what we find.
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