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Chapter Profile: NAIOP Vancouver
Land constraints lead to both challenges and opportunities.
Vancouver, British Columbia, is surrounded by stunning natural landscapes. The coastal seaport city, located on the Burrard Peninsula, is bordered by English Bay, Burrard Inlet, the Fraser River, and the Strait of Georgia. The nearby North Shore Mountains can be seen throughout the metro area.
Vancouver’s urban lifestyle and easy access to outdoor recreation make it a favorite destination for tourists and the television and film industries. Additionally, the city consistently ranks as one of the most livable places in the world, often appearing near the top of the Economist Intelligence Unit’s annual Global Liveability Index.
However, Vancouver’s constrained geography also means that land availability is limited in this densely populated city.
Development magazine recently contacted Ted Mildon, president of the NAIOP Vancouver chapter and vice president of office leasing and operations at Oxford Properties Group, for insights into the local market.
Development: What are the market conditions for member companies in your area?
Mildon: Vancouver remains a relatively healthy and stable market across most asset classes. Our industrial and office markets have seen some softening coming off of record-low vacancy rates, although relative to other cities in North America, our market continues to have positive stories and innovation.
Development: What are the challenges you’re facing in either the business or regulatory climate in your area?
Mildon: A crisis-level shortage of industrial land in the region has reduced inventory and increased lease rates. In some cases, those conditions are driving companies that wish to establish a local presence to consider neighbouring markets like Calgary.
Perhaps the biggest challenge though is a continuous increase of development cost charges and levies from various levels of government. These increased charges, which are often introduced or increased sporadically, complicate and threaten projects, especially when combined with long timelines for permits and approvals.
Development: What are the big opportunities in commercial real estate in your area currently?
Mildon: Due to the constraints on land in the Greater Vancouver market, the conditions for innovation are positive and the growth of mixed-use developments, particularly along rapid transit lines, continues. One thing to watch going forward will be how well developers in Greater Vancouver can combine residential, retail, office and even industrial uses into mixed-use developments.
Development: Share a few of your chapter’s legislative priorities.
Mildon: Municipalities have long been the level of government that is most relevant to the work of commercial real estate development. However, increasingly, provincial governments and federal government are introducing policy that affects the industry. An important priority for the Canadian chapters of NAIOP is to establish relationships at all levels of government and to serve as the voice of our industry.
Development: Education is an important part of NAIOP’s mission. What educational sessions have been specific to your chapter recently?
Mildon: Our chapter hosts an annual accredited Education Day series of four 90-minute sessions on commercial real estate fundamentals. The sessions cover investment, development, leasing and capital funding. NAIOP Vancouver uses new speakers each year who present recent local case studies that provide regional context and examples that are specific to current market conditions. Our 2024 series ran throughout the month of October.
Development: What is your chapter doing to cultivate the next generation of leaders in the commercial real estate industry?
Mildon: Our chapter encourages and supports a thriving Developing Leaders committee that puts on regular events to bring new and seasoned NAIOP members together, both to provide educational opportunities and nurture relationships. In turn, our Developing Leaders organize events that introduce local university students to the industry and help them establish relationships within it.
In addition, NAIOP Vancouver provides scholarships to postsecondary students in real estate programs or courses in three schools in the region. We also sponsor a University Real Estate Challenge, supporting a team of six to eight students. In 2025, NAIOP Vancouver will host the challenge event, welcoming students from four western Canadian universities.
Development: Is there anything I didn’t ask you about that you’d like to highlight?
Mildon: We are proud to mention that 2024 marks 30 years of our chapter being affiliated with NAIOP. The Vancouver chapter continues to grow in relevance, both to the local commercial real estate community and as an advocate to local governments for the betterment of our region’s future.
Jonathan Rollins is the managing editor of publications for NAIOP.
Emphasizing the Importance of Vancouver’s Industrial LandIn November 2023, NAIOP Vancouver released a first-of-its-kind report examining the impact of parking supply rates on industrial sites across metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley. Prepared by Bunt & Associates Engineering, the report was a follow-up to another study commissioned by NAIOP Vancouver and the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade on the economic impact of the industrial land shortage in metro Vancouver. As highlighted on NAIOP Vancouver’s website, the studies “aim to emphasize the importance of Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley’s industrial land, given its limited supply and the geographic challenges of the region.” To learn more about NAIOP Vancouver’s industrial parking study, read “Lots of Opportunity: Optimizing Industrial Parking” in the Fall 2024 issue of Development. |
