Wesgroup plans to hold a “grand opening” for the first public sales for residential units in New Westminster’s Brewery District – an area that already has 560,000 square feet of office space and 68,000 square feet of retail space.
VIP sales have already been conducted and it is unclear how many of the 115 homes in the yet-to-be-built, 15-storey Sapperton tower remain.
The site is steps from the Sapperton Skytrain station and is in an area that was previously home to a Labatt brewery.
Amenities at the Sapperton tower are set to include party rooms, a roof deck and a 10,000 square foot premium fitness facility.
Well-lit green space is expected to surround the building.
The tower has 59 one-bedroom units. It also has townhomes, which is rare for New Westminster. Those units are start at 1,350 square feet on two levels. Otherwise the building has two- and three-bedroom units, which also start at 1,350 square feet.
“There’s a real resurgence happening in this part of New West, fuelled by all the offices and shops,” said Wesgroup senior vice-president Beau Jarvis. “Buyers will be moving into a vibrant and super safe transit hub in a suburb that is seeing an influx of young people and cool new restaurants and stores.”
Wesgroup’s activity in the area started when it attracted a Thrifty Foods to the area. It then developed office space and built out the retail – all before a single condominium broke ground.
The Thrifty Foods has since converted to a Save-On-Foods whereas other retail tenants include TD Bank, Shoppers Drug Mart, Starbucks and Browns Social House. A yoga studio is opening soon. The net retail lease rate is $35 per square foot, similar to Vancouver’s Gastown or West Fourth Avenue.
Virtually all of the office space has been snapped up.
TransLink signed a 20-year lease on 261,000 square feet for its eight-storey headquarters, and a number of doctors and other medical professionals, drawn by the close proximity to Royal Columbia Hospital, bought office space for $468 to $685 per square foot.
This compares to a Metro Vancouver average of $393 per square foot. A third office building was sold to the 17,000-member Health Science Association.
– with files from Frank O’Brien
