Waterfront Real Estate will be Hot!

The waterfront project continues is forward march into the summer opening of the first restaurants and residential units. As this amazing project adds units there could be an buy opportunity in the Esther Short and Downtown areas as some may choose to sell there and move to the waterfront. In the long run I believe the waterfront will be much larger than the sum of its parts and will elevate the whole core downtown area.

Keep an eye on units in the following key buildings downtown. There could be a brief dip over the next few years as the new units come online.

• Vancouver Center 2: Entry to mid-level condos floors 1-7
• 500 Broadway: Luxury condos floors 5-6
• Vancouver Center 3: Mid-level to luxury condos floors 8-11
• Heritage Place: Mid-level condos floors 1-4 

I do not believe there will be any kind of crisis in these well established condo buildings in downtown Vancouver, just a chance that enough owners will want to upgrade or simply move to the waterfront that a brief surplus of downtown units may create an opportunity buying window.

A great many rental units are coming online right now from the brand new Uptown and Heroes Place projects to several other high density projects recently completed in Uptown and Downtown. But there hasn't been a lot of condo development just yet. Kirkland Tower on Block 4 of the water front will offer some 40 units on floors 2-12. These will range from 1000-3000 SF and that coincides well with the units downtown that range from as little as 600 SF all the way up to larger 3500 SF units in Vancouver Center 3 at 700 Washington Street. Kirkland broke ground recently and construction will begin starting with a giant hole in the ground similar to those we saw last year for blocks 6 and 8.

The City of Vancouver is working with Gramor Development to build out the city's Block Ten into a mid-rise mixed use building with a large grocery store on the main level. Downtown Vancouver should be seeing a serious increase in its 'city buzz' with these thousands of units adding to the local resident population. Instead of a downtown that buttons up after dark with the exodus of the business community, downtown is already starting to emit a more cosmopolitan community vibe. The city is also seeking a location downtown for an elementary school to educate the children of the thousands of new residents flocking to the area.

Below is a recent drone video produced by Dean Sorenson.