8289 replies to this topic

[timw11]

Just a note re: the photos, the papered up space at 524 Yates is not for lease. It'll be a high-quality commercial office space by the end of April (and yes, it'll be occupied  ).

Edited by timw11, 28 January 2015 - 06:50 PM.

[dasmo]

1 down, 47 to go....

[aastra]

I'm not keen on the idea of banning new commercial spaces in new buildings. It depends on the location. You really don't want a commercial unit on the Yates Street side of Chard's Capitol 6 building? How about on the ground floor of the Government and Wharf development? Or how about that big office project in James Bay? A huge plaza like what they're proposing, but with no commercial units?

 

And what's the alternative? Blank walls on the ground floor? Empty townhomes instead of empty commercial spaces? I'd prefer empty commercial units to empty townhomes.

 

So... is downtown Victoria in some alternate universe or something? The more commercial spaces that you create, the easier it should be for a business to find an affordable space, right? Can stubborn property owners really hold out forever against the natural cycle?

[Nparker]

OK I was being a bit tongue-in-cheek when I suggested banning any additional downtown commercial space, but I think most would agree the current market is well saturated. What I am very serious about however is the fact that we need a much more densely populated residential core if the existing and future businesses hope to survive and thrive.

[gumgum]

I'm not keen on the idea of banning new commercial spaces in new buildings. It depends on the location. You really don't want a commercial unit on the Yates Street side of Chard's Capitol 6 building? How about on the ground floor of the Government and Wharf development? Or how about that big office project in James Bay? A huge plaza like what they're proposing, but with no commercial units?

And what's the alternative? Blank walls on the ground floor? Empty townhomes instead of empty commercial spaces? I'd prefer empty commercial units to empty townhomes.

So... is downtown Victoria in some alternate universe or something? The more commercial spaces that you create, the easier it should be for a business to find an affordable space, right? Can stubborn property owners really hold out forever against the natural cycle?

I would much rather townhomes or better yet brownstone style townhomes rather than empty storefronts. It means there's someone actually in there.
Yes Victoria is an alternative universe in a sense that the muni has been unwittingly restricting density for years and yet harbouring a vision of a utopic, healthy downtown, where people will magically appear - filling every commercial and public space with shiny happy people... and fairies.
Let's be like New York and Vancouver and Paris and London.... And let's hope that no one notices that it's not the infrastructure or fancy public spaces or public markets or edgy hipster bridges that will ensure the survival of this god forsaken place in the end. Let keep pandering to the misinformed public that we don't need actual warm bodies and the buildings they house inside that very downtown where we want to be healthy and cool and safe.

Edited by gumgum, 28 January 2015 - 07:47 PM.

[Mixed365]

I wonder if, with the high number of leases, we will see many for sale. 

Perhaps the commercial brokers wont be finding much action, so they will talk the owner/propertymanager/developer into selling and then another developer will be able to revamp the space or hold until a better tomorrow. 

[Mike K.]

And that's another good thing, I suppose, is unleased space gives developers incentive to sell or redevelop. High quality commercial has no problems being leased, its the lower end stock that is undesirable, expensive, and a tenant would be foolish to inject a lot of upgrade capital in such a risky market, especially a market that can't help but tax businesses to their breaking point. At least with a new space you know it's not going to get demo'd.

[dasmo]

A lot of those are not low end and are new builds... The more that empty the less likely people will snap up the condos for sale now and thus the less likelihood of redevelopment. This is not a good thing. This is a time for triage....

[Mike K.]

I'd say 25%, tops, is new build. The stock that sits is old. Even Mondrian has leased it's retail spaces, Union is going to welcome its first tenant soon, Sovereign is fully leased, 601 Herald is now fully leased. Argus on Fort and Hudson Mews are still sitting empty but it's just matter of time before they start moving. Hudson sure did OK.

[VicHockeyFan]

Hudson did OK? Its biggest tenant went broke, and that space sits empty. At least two market tenants have already folded.

[Mike K.]

Doesn't matter what's happened in the past, its fully leased now other than the corner space. What the Market does is a different matter entirely.

[dasmo]

Blinders...

[jonny]

I'd say 25%, tops, is new build. The stock that sits is old. Even Mondrian has leased it's retail spaces, Union is going to welcome its first tenant soon, Sovereign is fully leased, 601 Herald is now fully leased. Argus on Fort and Hudson Mews are still sitting empty but it's just matter of time before they start moving. Hudson sure did OK.

 

Atrium, Juliet and the Falls all filled up with tenants quickly and have remained full.

 

The Hudson has done OK. It's not their fault that restaurant was terrible. The RBC, optical place, coffee shop, olive oil place, yoga place and bakery have all been there for years and are seemingly doing well. A couple of tenants have folded in the market, but one or two new ones have opened as well (there's a sushi place in there now). When I have gone in there, business has seemed steady.

 

A lot of the spaces that remain empty are overpriced garbage. That is absolutely correct. Many of the pictures dasmo has posted are junky spaces. New buildings or newly renovated spaces downtown have done quite well.

 

I think for sure one of the issues is greedy landowners who won't settle for less than top dollar. I've heard of two cases and I'm sure there have been more. I absolutely think a decresae in rents overall could lead to a much more 'vibrant' Victoria. Maybe a part of that equation is to still push ground floor commercial space.

[dasmo]

If you lost 25% of your paycheque you would call it a lot...

[Mike K.]

Blinders...

Do you lease your own office space in the downtown core?

[jklymak]

Yeah, I'm not quite as down as dasmo is on downtown.  Blanshard Street is full of great restaurants, LoJo is doing very well w/ boutiques etc, Government St. has some holes, but there are still a lot of great stores on govt.  Sure, there are some crappier streets, but they are crappier because the commercial is fragmented and doesn't make a very good pedestrian experience.  Thats why I would like planners to designate storefront streets where new buildings are planned to have storefronts, and to discourage such use on other streets, so that some blocks can get that critical mass, and not dilute it.  

 

As for homelessness and parking driving folks to the Westshore, I don't know.  If you need a big box store, you aren't going to go downtown, but thats fine.  Why compete on that level?  Sure, clean things up and make the parking even easier downtown, but I wouldn't say it has a huge effect that drives the kind of people who want to shop downtown to the Westshore.  Its like saying the kind of people who want to go to Brasserie L'Ecole are being driven to Appleby's.  

[VicHockeyFan]

 Its like saying the kind of people who want to go to Brasserie L'Ecole are being driven to Appleby's.  

 

That's a long drive (Calgary or Bellingham).  http://www.applebees...location-finder

[jonny]

Yeah, I'm not quite as down as dasmo is on downtown.  Blanshard Street is full of great restaurants, LoJo is doing very well w/ boutiques etc, Government St. has some holes, but there are still a lot of great stores on govt.  Sure, there are some crappier streets, but they are crappier because the commercial is fragmented and doesn't make a very good pedestrian experience.  Thats why I would like planners to designate storefront streets where new buildings are planned to have storefronts, and to discourage such use on other streets, so that some blocks can get that critical mass, and not dilute it.    

 

That's a really good idea. Brownstones would work really well on parts of View and Johnson, but Fort and Yates should be all ground floor commercial from Cook on down.

[VicHockeyFan]

That's a really good idea. Brownstones would work really well on parts of View and Johnson, but Fort and Yates should be all ground floor commercial from Cook on down.

 

So what about the new buildings planned for Yates (Philip Nyren site) and the funeral home site on Johnson?

[jonny]

So what about the new buildings planned for Yates (Philip Nyren site) and the funeral home site on Johnson?

 

The ground floor of the funeral home site could easily be brownstones. That's a good question about the Philip Nyren site. The neighboring building doesn't have ground floor commercial, and that isn't a major issue. I think that one could go either way. Commercial would be preferred in my books, but brownstones would not be the end of the world.