Calgary is earning a growing reputation as a major warehouse and distribution hub, but that hasn’t stopped one city developer from thinking outside the box.
Chris Dobbin plans to renovate the distribution centre at 401 33rd St. N.E. after Ace Hardware moves out in May, but he will be adding retail and office units to the warehouse space.
“It will be a business park,” he says.
He envisages two or three tenants and is talking to potential users. Chris Saunders at Colliers International is the real estate agent.
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| David Lazarowych, Business Edge |
| Chris Dobbin will renovate the Ace Hardware site in Calgary. |
The area – between 28th and 36th Streets N.E. and north of Memorial Drive – has truck access and access to downtown.
There are lots of amenities, including restaurants and LRT service, along 36th Street. In more traditional warehouse areas, staff need cars to get to work, says Dobbin.
Retail and office uses are growing in the area as well, he says.
The real flexibility is in the extra land. The 30-ft. clear warehouse covers 200,000 sq. ft., with 23,000 sq. ft. of office in the front and potential for another 23,000 sq. ft. on the mezzanine. The parking lot can hold 600 to 800 cars and it’s about half of the building’s front yard.
That space amounts to another four acres and will be developed as Phase 2 of the project. What goes there will depend on what goes inside the existing warehouse, says Dobbin.
The flexibility is important. The property will still be substantially warehouse, but other uses can be added.
Warehouse retail, for example, needs an attractive showroom to display floor samples of product and a large warehouse to hold delivery samples.
Dobbin usually buys and redevelops properties, preferring one project at a time. He has done projects all over the city, including several in Kensington.
Calgary building permits took a big jump in December compared to the last month of 2000, city hall reports.
The city issued permits worth $124.4 million, 31 per cent more than the $94.7 million a year earlier.
Residential permits increased 25 per cent, totalling $76.2 million in December 2001 and $60.9 million in the same month in 2000.
Single-family permits were valued at $58.2 million of that, up 39 per cent from the previous year.
Non-residential permits increased 42 per cent to $48.2 million.
Building permits issued in 2001 totalled $1.98 billion, a drop of four per cent from $2.06 billion in 2000.
New house prices rose a third of a per cent nationally in November, Statistics Canada reports.
The statistical agency says contractors’ selling prices went up 2.7 per cent from November 2000 to November last year, and 0.3 per cent from October. The month-to-month rise in Calgary was 0.6 per cent and in Edmonton, 0.5 per cent. Prices rose 0.7 per cent in London, Ont., and 0.5 per cent in both Halifax and Winnipeg.
Eleven of 21 urban areas in the survey had price rises, three had declines and seven no change. Ottawa-Hull had the largest annual rise, followed by Montreal, Calgary, Edmonton and London.
A real estate investment trust has bought a business centre in a southeast industrial park in Calgary.
Canadian Real Estate Investment Trust (CREIT) paid $17 million for Valleyfield Business Centre, a multi-tenant industrial project in two buildings, with office and showroom components. The existing buildings are 224,000 sq. ft. and there is room for another two buildings totalling 50,000 sq. ft. CREIT expects to put another $3 million into the project.
Valleyfield Industrial Park is near the Deerfoot Trail and Peigan Trail interchange.
Calgary’s downtown office market closed 2001 with negative absorption in the fourth quarter, says Avison Young Commercial Real Estate. That industry speak means more office space became available than was leased.
The firm’s downtown office vacancy report shows absorption for the year of 790,112 sq. ft. and a vacancy rate of 7.8 per cent.
It predicts market equilibrium as companies continue to grow or move to Calgary and take up sublease space created by mergers and downsizing. It sees absorption of 500,000 sq. ft. of office space this year.
CB Richard Ellis also reported negative absorption in the fourth quarter of last year.
Vacancy rates rose in all classes of buildings downtown as more headlease and sublease space was on the market. Overall vacancy climbed to 10.8 per cent with headlease vacancies at 7.6 per cent. About a third of available office space is sublease.
(Real estate firms use varying methods to calculate commercial vacancies.)
