New tower next to Waterfront Station is uniquely strata ownership office (PHOTOS)

Construction progress on Bosa Waterfront Centre at 320 Granville Street, as of September 17, 2022. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

What was previously a rickety-looking parkade at the northern foot of Granville Street in downtown Vancouver is now a 377-foot-tall, 30-storey office tower.

Construction on Bosa Waterfront Centre, impossible to miss just across from Waterfront Station, is now winding down and set to reach full completion in a matter of weeks.

Most major new office towers are delivered as rental office space, but Bosa Waterfront Centre uniquely contains strata ownership office for nearly half of the tower — the first 18 floors are strata offices, accounting for well over 150,000 sq ft of 350,000 sq ft of office uses in the building.

“We rarely, if ever, see that amount of office strata offered in one project at the same time,” Dan Jordan, senior vice president at Colliers International Canada, told Daily Hive Urbanized.

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The strata office portion of the tower completely sold out in about a week in 2017. Construction at the site — 320 Granville Street, located at the southeast corner of the intersection of West Cordova Street and Granville Street — first began the following year.

Bosa Waterfront Centre is designed by New York City-based Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates — perhaps best known for 5 World Trade Center in New York City and International Commerce Centre in Hong Kong. The architectural firm also has a growing number of Vancouver area projects, including a new additional office tower within the Bentall Centre campus.

As of now, Jordan says the 18th floor — the highest and largest strata office floor with unobstructed views of the harbour and mountains — has been re-listed for sale. The remaining floors above the tower’s lower half of strata are traditional rental office spaces by Bosa Development. Major tenants in the building include Bosa Development, Appia Developments, SRK Engineering, and Strand Development.

Bosa Waterfront Centre 320 Granvilel Street Vancouver construction October 11 2022

Construction progress on Bosa Waterfront Centre at 320 Granville Street, as of October 11, 2022. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

Rental office buildings are most common, says Jordan, for corporate entities with a broader ownership structure, publicly traded companies, and technology companies. This includes tech companies that have more fluctuation in their employee count, as it provides them with more flexibility to grow and contract.

“Publicly traded companies often tend towards leasing as the shareholders would rather see more immediate returns on their capital or to see excess capital poured back into the business for faster growth, versus into real estate,” he said.

Businesses that are much more likely to secure office space to own are private companies and those in the professional service industry, as they generally have a more stable business from a growth and employee standpoint, and are able to attain better financing terms from traditional lenders.

“These companies are often owned by an individual or small group of people, who feel better about spending a significant capital budget on interior improvements in a space that they own instead of lease,” said Jordan.

“It is also an excellent way for owners of a company to build wealth over time, by owning the asset that they operate the business from.”

bosa waterfront centre 320 granville street vancouver october 11 2021

Construction progress on Bosa Waterfront Centre at 320 Granville Street, as of October 11, 2022. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

Bosa Waterfront Centre 320 Granvilel Street Vancouver construction September 17 2022

Construction progress on Bosa Waterfront Centre at 320 Granville Street, as of September 17, 2022. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

Bosa Waterfront Centre is located on a city block that is seeing immense transformation from varying property owners and projects — a total of six office building projects, including three new towers and three tower renewal projects.

Going clockwise around the city block from West Cordova Street, the 1985-built, 17-storey office building to the west at 333 Seymour Street will see a new facade, adding to the major upgrades it has seen in recent years to its base. One of its largest tenants is Salesforce.

At the southeast corner of the city block, PCI Developments reached completion in 2021 on a 25-storey office tower with 225,000 sq ft of office space at 601 West Hastings Street.

PCI Developments’ office tower at 333 Seymour Street, Vancouver. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

Mid-block on the south side of the city block, a 330-foot-tall, 28-storey office tower will be squeezed into a 6,200 sq ft vacant lot at 619-685 West Hastings Street, with a narrow street frontage of just 52 feet. Uptown Property Group’s project on this site will generate 160,000 sq ft of office space.

Uptown Property Group also owns the 1931-built, 20-storey Royal Bank Building at the southwest corner of the block — facing the intersection of Granville Street and West Hastings Street. This A-listed heritage-protected building is currently undergoing a significant restoration project, and its seismic upgrades entail physically attaching the heritage building with the structural system of the adjacent new 28-storey office tower.

Immediately to the west of this entire block, the federal government has plans to provide Sinclair Centre with a $500 million redevelopment that increases its floor area from about 390,000 sq ft to up to 1.1 million sq ft with the construction of an office tower, while also retaining its most valuable heritage structures.

PCI Developments’ 2021-built office tower at 601 West Hastings Street, Vancouver. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

Existing condition of 619-685 West Hastings Street, including the RBC Building undergoing renovations:

619-685 West Hastings Street Vancouver Royal Bank Building

The old RBC Building undergoing renovations, as of October 11, 2022, as part of its upgrades with the new adjacent office building at 619-685 West Hastings Street, Vancouver. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

Future condition of 619-685 West Hastings Street:

Artistic rendering of the mid-block office tower at 619-685 West Hastings Street, Vancouver, next to the old RBC Building. (Musson Cattell Mackey Partnership/Uptown Property Group)

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