BCBusiness

Nov2017-flipbook-BCB-LR

With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.

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The future of industrial? There are a few development industry responses to the industrial land crisis. If they can't build horizontally, some developers are going vertical, like PC Urban and Conwest Group of Cos., which are constructing multi-storey strata industrial projects on Vancouver's east side. Conwest says presales for its 200,000-square-foot Ironworks project, due to open in about a year, were so robust that it held back on several units. The two-building project will be one-third o€ce space, with some space for a restaurant and co‚ee shop. Ben Taddei, chief operating o€cer of Vancouver-based Conwest, says industrial buildings of the future should keep mixing it up. "Why can't you have a site that accommodates all uses?" he asks. "At grade, you have heavy truck access uses; above that, you've got light industrial; above that you have some o€ce, and maybe above that you have artist lofts, rentals, condos. People don't want to do it yet. But I think that will eventually change. It will have to." The appeal of ownership is strong for small and midsize businesses that need to stay central. (Peter Spotzl is out of luck, though: because he works with large machinery, he needs high ceilings on one level.) So far, Ironworks' buyers have been in the service industry, light manufacturing, distribution and whole- sale. Assignments are prohibited, as are speculators and inves- tors, Taddei says. Conwest has a strict end-user requirement for Ironworks, and buyers should be established businesses. It's one way to protect the market from empty-building syn- drome, where units become nothing but holding properties. It also ensures that the local companies get a leg up. "We are being very selective on the types of buyers that pur- chase here, because we want to make sure they bring vibrancy and life to the building," Taddei says. Jones Lang LaSalle's Fiorvento says he isn't seeing much •ip- ping at Rivershore on Mitchell Island, but developer PC Urban plans to limit that kind of activity. For example, the developer must approve any assignments. These real estate products are about occupants growing their businesses. "This allows people to build equity, build wealth and own their own unit that their business is in, so it's not a lot of risk," Fiorvento says. "They need space anyway." Land use policy is another possible solution. There's pres- sure to take some acreage from the Agricultural Land Reserve, particularly farms that are underused or sitting as holding prop- erties. "Nobody wants to look at it because it's politically not a popular thing, but look at the needs for ALR, and then look at the needs for employment growth," CBRE's MacCauley says. For Spotzl, the decision to move was made for him in Octo- ber, when a ›re that broke out next door destroyed his shop. "It's pretty early stages for me to speculate, but this means Metal & Wood won't be in Vancouver anymore," he said a few hours after the blaze. Even if another space in the neighbourhood were avail- able for rent, it wouldn't be zoned for heavy industrial. "I think everyone in our industry has felt pushed out," explained Spotzl, who knows other local businesses that have already decided to relocate to far more a‚ordable Coquitlam. "We love being here, but only at a certain point can we justify being in Vancouver." ■ Integral to the restoration of Indigenous law to its place alongside Canadian common law, Dr. John Borrows, Killam award-winner and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Law, honours living legal traditions by bringing the past into the present. Drawing upon natural law, he's inspired by his spectacular community, Neyaashiinigmiing (Cape Croker on the Bruce Peninsula, Ontario). It's in our commitment to the future in Indigenous law, leadership, languages and culture THE EDGE IS HERE Integral to the restoration of Indigenous law to its place alongside Canadian common law, Dr. John Borrows, Killam award-winner and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Law, honours living legal traditions by bringing the past into the present. Drawing upon natural law, he's inspired by his spectacular community, Neyaashiinigmiing (Cape Croker on the Bruce Peninsula, Ontario). It's in our commitment to the future in Indigenous law, leadership, languages and culture THE EDGE IS HERE

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