A prime site in Burnaby’s Metrotown neighbourhood is for sale, offering both solid holding income from existing apartments and attractive redevelopment potential.

Two apartment properties on Silver Ave., in Burnaby, B.C., are for sale. (Image courtesy Goodman Report/HQ Commercial)

The two three-storey apartment buildings built in 1967, at 6470 and 6508 Silver Ave. in the Vancouver suburb, are being sold by a family which has owned them for years. The asking price is $52 million.

“The buildings are extraordinarily well-maintained and the rents are at market value, which is different from a lot of the other properties that have sold in the Metrotown area, where they were tired and underperforming assets,” said Mark Goodman, a principal and partner at Vancouver-based Goodman Report and commercial real estate brokerage HQ Commercial.

Metrotown site and its potential

The 730-acre Metrotown is in the southwest quadrant of Burnaby. It’s one of the city’s four officially designated town centres and has experienced major growth in recent years with the development of residential and office high-rise buildings.

The 1.4-acre Silver Avenue site is located on a quiet street across from Maywood Park and a five-minute walk from the Metropolis at Metrotown’s almost 400 stores and services as well as the Metrotown SkyTrain station. More shopping, a school and a library are in the immediate vicinity, while Central Park is a four-minute bicycle ride and Bonsor Recreation Complex is a 10-minute walk.

The site has 284 feet of frontage on Silver Avenue and is 211 feet deep, for a total of 59,895 square feet. The 83 existing apartment units provide annual income of close to $1 million, according to Goodman.

“It’s going to cover your holding costs and your taxes, which is great because there are a lot of sites where there’s very little holding income and it becomes a little bit more challenging,” said Goodman.

However, Goodman believes the site is most attractive for its redevelopment potential of up to 215,622 square feet. He said the listing for the property was sent out on Nov. 7 and attracted immediate interest.

“A lot of the big players in the industry are either buying sites or building in the area right now, so it’s been proven out that there’s certainly a comfort level now. We just sold a property on Dow Avenue that was very similar, with the same zoning, which supports our price point.”

Other Metrotown developments

Among the recent and upcoming developments in the immediate area are:

* Modello — a sold-out, 37-storey, 163-suite condominium with 12,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor amenity space — by Boffo Developments;
* Maywood on the Park, a 32-storey, 298-suite condo by Intracorp;
* Gold House, a 490-suite, mixed-use high-rise residential and commercial condo by Rize;
* Sun Towers Metrotown, comprised of two residential high-rise condos and a podium devoted to retail and office space, by Belford Properties;
* and BlueSky Metrotown, a 34-storey, 365-suite condo by BlueSky Properties.

“It would be a multi-million-dollar project, so you would have to be established and have resources to accomplish this,” Goodman concluded of potential purchasers that could redevelop the Silver Avenue site. “It’s going to be one of the bigger guys, but there are newer players entering the industry.”