University Heights Shopping Centre in suburban Victoria has been bought for about $52 million by a Vancouver-based firm associated with the Khosrowshahi family’s Persis Holdings Ltd., the founders and former owners of the Future Shop electronics chain.
The sale is also closely tied to Vancouver developer Wesbild Holdings, a Persis real estate arm
Located at the corner of Shelbourne Street and McKenzie Avenue in Saanich, University Heights has 199,138 square feet of leaseable area and the site covers 10.7 acres. It was built in 1988 and has expanded since.
B.C. Assessment has pegged the shopping centre’s value at $44 million.
The property’s new owner is University Heights Shopping Centre Ltd., which paid $52.26 million, according to government records. Directors of that company are Hassan and Nezhat Khosrowshahi and Kevin Layden. Its address Vancouver address is the same address as Persis Holdings Ltd.
Layden is president and chief executive of Wesbild Holdings, which has developed and managed more than 3.1 million square feet of shopping centres in B.C., Alberta, and in the U.S, along with the 130-acre River District development in South Vancouver.
Persis was founded in 1981 by Hassan Khosrowshahi, who started Future Shop the following year. Future Shop was sold to U.S.-based Best Buy in 2001.
