Vancouver Sun

Developer taps demand for industrial strata units

PC Urban’s new projects attractive to businesses that want to own their space

- EVAN DUGGAN evan@evanduggan.com twitter.com/EvanBDugga­n

It took Dav Szeto about three years to find the right industrial space to buy in Metro Vancouver to house his constructi­on-management company.

Szeto, the owner of GBS Constructi­on Managers, had been running his company out of an office in downtown Vancouver for about 15 years, but their warehouse space was located elsewhere, and the costs and logistics of two spaces stopped making sense, he told Postmedia in an interview.

Metro Vancouver is experienci­ng a shortage of small-business industrial spaces — the kind of place a contractor might store tools or vehicles, or fabricate countertop­s or store inventory.

Metro Vancouver’s industrial vacancy rate is about two per cent.

Szeto ended up buying a strata unit at IntraUrban Business Park, a strata industrial park PC Urban is now building on a five-acre plot in Vancouver at 8811 Laurel St. near SW Marine and Oak St.

More recently, he bought two more units at PC Urban’s latest strata industrial project on Mitchell Island, called IntraUrban Rivershore.

The project is one of several by the Vancouver-based developer that tap into a competitiv­e industrial market driven by small businesses like Szeto’s that want to own their space and build up some equity as they advance their companies.

Szeto bought two units at IntraUrban Rivershore totalling nearly 9,200 square feet.

He said the company could eventually relocate from the Laurel Street location to Mitchell Island when it’s complete, and they plan to lease out the other two units.

It took about three years from deciding to buy to finding the right kind of unit, he said.

“There was nothing for sale,” he said. “Anything that was for sale was older. I would say probably 15 to 20 years old, and the pricing wasn’t much less than what PC Urban was offering.”

He said similar light industrial properties with high ceilings, large bay doors and office space are tough to come by.

“If you thought, residentia­lly, it’s competitiv­e, it’s the same with light industrial,” Szeto said.

IntraUrban Rivershore is being built on 12 acres of Mitchell Island that used to host the former Western Steel plant.

The new 265,000-square foot project will include two buildings in two phases. It is designed with upper-level flex space/mezzanines, 26-foot ceilings, and loading bays for each unit. It will have parking for 342 cars.

The Laurel Street project sold out in just four months, prompting the company to seek out additional land for another, similar project, PC Urban principal Brent Sawchyn said.

“We found the only remaining site close to Vancouver suitable for convention­al strata industrial units and ideal for small- and medium-sized businesses,” he said in an interview.

The Laurel project had an average size of 3,200 sq. ft per unit. The Mitchell Island buildings will have an average unit size of about 10,000 sq. ft, he said.

Sawchyn said they have another industrial strata project underway in Kelowna called IntraUrban Enterprise, and they plan to launch yet another strata industrial project in the spring in the Brentwood area of Burnaby.

“The response has been overwhelmi­ng,” he said.

Over the past four years, industrial strata property here has increased in value by 42 per cent, said Bruno Fiorvento, an executive vice-president with JLL, the listing agency for the project.

Fiorvento said Beedie Industrial introduced the concept of light industrial strata into the market about 12 years ago, and it has become more attractive to developers since then.

“A lot of these small businesses would have always loved to own,” he said. “With the scarcity of land, you just don’t have sites that are an acre, or an acre-and-a-half to do 10,000 to 20,000 square feet of space. It becomes cost prohibitiv­e and it’s just impossible.”

He said IntraUrban Rivershore is the first light industrial strata project in Richmond in the last seven years.

“We were supposed to launch the project about a month ago coming into the beginning of September,” he said. “We started marketing it just softly — we called it a whisper campaign — and all of a sudden we were getting incredible feedback from groups.”

He said the asking rate is now roughly $300 per square foot. They sold out Phase 1 in less than two weeks.

“That delayed our launch because it changed some of the pricing and some of the other things,” he said. “A short while after, about a week-and-a-half after, we were halfway done on Phase 2.”

He said the buildings will be home to food-distributi­on companies, other constructi­on contractor­s, moving companies and some light manufactur­ing groups. Occupancy is expected in late 2019.

 ??  ?? A rendering depicts PC Urban’s project on Mitchell Island in Richmond dubbed IntraUrban Rivershore, which will feature industrial strata units designed for small businesses that average about 10,000 square feet each.
A rendering depicts PC Urban’s project on Mitchell Island in Richmond dubbed IntraUrban Rivershore, which will feature industrial strata units designed for small businesses that average about 10,000 square feet each.

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Canada