NEWS UPDATE
2 SIDNEY Victoria Airport wins International Award Victoria International Airport recently won a prestigious award for customer service in North America among airports serving up two million passengers a year. This is the second time the Victoria airport has won the Airports Council International award for service quality. The criteria for evaluating customer satisfaction includes airport effeciency, staff courtesy, ambiance, cleanliness, value for money in food, beverage and retail outlets and security screening processes. The award is set to be presented at a ceremony in April. The only other Canadian airport that was recognized in the awards was Ottawa International Airport, which placed fifth in the best airport in North America. Victoria Airport serves about 1.6 million passengers a year and offers 120 daily flights.
VICTORIA Dockside Green plans to rezone Dockside Green has put forward a rezoning application to
the municipality to redistribute space across their site on Victoria’s Inner Harbour. The project is an ambitious redevelopment of a 14.6-acre space that was originally slated for more than 1,000 residential units and approximately 150,000 square feet of commercial and industrial space. The application to the City of Victoria proposes to redistribute space across the site, slightly increasing the residential component while reducing the commercial space to 144,000 square feet. The final count of residential units was last pegged at 1,200 units, but is still yet to be determined. The development sold its last residential unit in 2010 with just 300,000 square feet of space built. Approximately 1.1 million square feet has yet to be built. The rezoning application goes to public hearing this fall; construction is scheduled to resume in 2016.
VICTORIA Victoria Real Estate Market continues 2014’s upward trend The Victoria Real Estate Board released its report on real estate activity in the Victoria area for January 2015. 35 1 prop er t ie s sold i n t he
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Victoria region this January, an increase of 2.6% when compared to the 342 properties sold in the same month last year. “We don’t expect to see big numbers in January. It’s a slower month traditionally for real estate,” Victoria Real Estate Board President Guy Crozier says. “Even this slight increase after the 11.67% year over year increase in sales we saw in 2014 shows the continued stability of our market. There’s also a good balance of inventory available for sale, which will likely appeal to buyers as the spring season hits. Last month while we saw 10 single family homes sold for over a million dollars, there were also 95 homes sold for under $500,000.” At the end of January there were 3,283 active listings for sale on the Multiple Listing Service, a slight decrease from the 3,489 in January 2014. This continues a trend that started in mid-2013 where there are fewer listings in the market than there were in the same month of the year previous. The Multiple Listing Service Home Price Index benchmark value for a single family home in the Victoria Core this time last year was $548,500. The benchmark value for the same home this month has increased by 2.39% to $561,600. “With the change in mortgage rates surprising some, and the continuing low oil prices and Canadian dollar, the spring real
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estate market should be an interesting one to watch,” Crozier adds.
GREATER VICTORIA Local jobless rate slips to 4.6 per cent Greater Victoria’s unemployment rate decreased to 4.6 per cent in January, below the national rate of 6.6 per cent. The capital’s rate in December was five per cent. The number of new jobs reported by Statistics Canada was much higher than estimated, but included a loss of 11,800 full-time positions, offset by a gain of 47,200 part-time jobs. The economy also added 41,100 self-employed positions in January, while employee jobs across the country dropped by 5,700. StatsCan indicated that Canada’s gross domestic product declined 0.2 per cent in November compared with the previous month – a weaker-than-expected reading reportedly due to declines in manufacturing and key resource sectors. T he data a lso sa id Ca nada gained 127,600 jobs over the 12 months leading up to January, a total that included 107,800 fulltime positions and 19,900 parttime jobs. By region, the provinces of Quebec, Alberta, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island all showed increases, while Saskatchewan shed 8,400 jobs last month and saw its unemployment rate climb to 4.5 per cent from 3.7. The report also shows the youth unemployment rate decreased by 0.7 percentage points last month to 12.8 per cent and that 30,300 more young people had work compared to a year earlier. The participation rate for youth fell to 64.3 per cent from 64.6 per cent in December.
VICTORIA BC Ferries signs 10-year contract with Fortis BC Ferries has signed a 10-year contract with FortisBC to supply liquefied natural gas for three ferries currently under construction. Fortis will supply about 7.8 million liters of gas per year by the time all three vessels are in service. The first vessel is expected to be operating in late 2016, while the other two ferries are set to join the fleet in 2017. The contract will ensure a long-term supply of power for the three new intermediate-class vessels that will each have a capacity for 600 passengers and 145 vehicles. Two of the new ships will replace the 50-year old Queen of
Burnaby, which sails between Comox and Powell River and the 51-year old Queen of Nanaimo, which services the Tsawwassen – Southern Gulf Island route. The third vessel will supplement peak and shoulder season service on the Southern Gulf Islands route, plus provide refit relief around the fleet. Last year, BC Ferries spent $126 million on fuel. Even with consideration for the current drop in diesel prices, BC Ferries expects to realize significant savings in fuel related cost. FortisBC provided BC Ferries with $6 million in incentive funding for the new vessels to help offset costs associated with the use of LNG.
VICTORIA Downtown Victoria shows demand for high quality office space 2014 was a record setting year for Greater Victoria’s office space market, with both positive and negative perspectives, according to recent Colliers report. The overall vacancy rate increased by 0.4 per cent to reach a 17 year high of 9.6 per cent. This equates to 835,715 square feet of vacant space, the largest ever recorded in Victoria. On the other hand, the amount of occupied space also reached a record setting 7,869,292 square feet. According to their report, the Greater Victoria investment market experienced a strong year relative to office investment sales. A total of 35 transactions were completed in 2014, for a total sales volume of $102.3 million, well ahead of the $43.2 million volume in 2013. Among the notable transactions was the Provincial Government’s option sale of the Axor building on the Selkirk lands, the vacant Customs House at 816 Government Street, as well as the 595 Pandora, which was also vacant. The report forecasts that the significant amount of office space proposed for Downtown Victoria will help address the demand for new and quality office space, but will also impact the increasing vacancy of lower quality buildings. The report anticipates that the trend will commence in early 2017.
VICTORIA Local companies named among finalists for Small Business BC Awards The Top 5 finalists have now been selected for the 12 th Annual Small Business BC Awards. The province-wide competition draws nominations under ten different categories, where entrepreneurs and small business