into will free up some older properties for tenants who don’t need triple-A space or who want quarters to improve. “Now there [are] opportunities, and those opportunities are available at [prices that are] markedly lower than … in the past several years. So now there’s a flight to quality,” says Dubuque. He sees potential for five new office towers downtown. While the first wave is starting to break ground (Oxford did so on its project in late 2011, and Bentall Kennedy and Telus are expected to proceed this year), a second wave is now taking shape. Credit Suisse Group plans a 400,000-square-foot tower at 819 West Pender, while Manulife hopes to develop 250,000 square feet at 960 Howe on the south side of downtown. Designs for a 32-storey tower are also being drafted at 320 Granville, a project led by Vancouver Whitecaps owner Greg Kerfoot. The Jim Pattison Group and Reliance Properties may also submit a development application late this year for 190,000 square feet of office space in the 1200-block of Burrard as part of the mixed-use Burrard Gateway project. The optimism that developers are displaying downtown is manifest elsewhere.
Small floor plates in the slim tower that Oxford Properties is developing at 1021 West Hastings respond to the smaller size of Vancouver’s business tenants
Vancouver’s Metropolitan Core Jobs and Economy Land Use Plan, unveiled in 2009 after two years of study, boldly defined the urban core as the area north of 16th Avenue between Burrard Street and Clark Drive. Onni Group’s Central project at Main and Terminal and major
proposals in the Broadway Corridor at 558 West Broadway and 988 West Broadway promise to bring a combined total of 225,000 square feet to the area beyond the downtown peninsula. Farther afield, Marine Gateway, Renfrew Business Centre and Broadway Tech Centre are boosting the city’s capacity to house office tenants. The tightness of the downtown market has sent some tenants looking to the suburbs. While downtown addresses will remain key for many, transit lines allow satellites of the core to spring up, creating new hubs for back office staff of some core businesses (see story, page 18). Call it a transit-enabled downtown. Ą
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