[Downtown Victoria] Gateway Green | Office | 58m | 15-storeys | Approved

[Mike K.]

What could have been...

[Nparker]

Found this burried in the business section of the T-C from late last week:

http://www.timescolonist.com/busines...948/story.html

Any ideas of who a suitable anchor tenant would be if not the province?

[concorde]

Originally Posted by Holden West

My memory may be faulty but wasn't GG a partnership between Tri-Eagle and Mike Jawl? Note that Atrium was a different branch of the Jawl family so essentially two sides of the family (cousins?) were battling for the same potential office tenants.

yes it was. Mike's dad and uncles were behind the Atrium

[Mike K.]

Originally Posted by Nparker

Found this burried in the business section of the T-C from late last week:

http://www.timescolonist.com/busines...948/story.html

Any ideas of who a suitable anchor tenant would be if not the province?

I suppose it depends on what they'll be asking per square foot. Uptown's Class-A space is sitting empty with the developer now offering concessions to new tenants and even so only little guys are taking up digs (i.e. medical clinics, etc, for which there is demand throughout the region).

The big push for the next office building in Victoria-proper will be at Selkirk Waterfront. Space is tight and tenants are expressing interest in expanding there rather than relocating. Jawl Properties plans to build a mixed-use office/residential building rather than just another condo.

In Saanich Tri-Eagle is banking on interest at its Paragon and Thunderbird buildings. The westshore is still attracting build-to-suit projects like the new Fortis building in Langford and Quality Controls Annex in View Royal.

[baconnbits]

An existing tenant in Selkirk will be moving into the new building to be built there. I understand negotiations are all but complete. The backfill space will be filled by the moving tenants current co-tenant who is expanding.

With floor plates of circa 850 sqm, I will be surprised if they get the building off. The building plan is far too restricted by the site plan and not condusive to tenants in Victoria, at least tenants who would take up enough space to get the building off the ground. I’d estimate GG would need to be at least 30% precommitted before they could secure any financing. That means that they will require one large tenant to take approximately 5 floors or 5,000 sqm. Smaller tenants are unlikely to commit to the building until this happens as their commitment won’t secure the developer starting construction – and no tenant will sign on the line for a building that might never get built.

So that leaves drawing in government tenants and as I have said ways back on this thread, the only way GG will secure government tenants is if two situations occur 1)government grows and needs more space – not happening at the moment, and 2) there’s not better alternative space – no longer happening as other side of the jawl family have secured an extremely large site closer to the downtown core.

The new mohan jawl site is larger and thus provides greater flexibility for the developers. They will be able to ‘build to suit’ for a committing tenant.

Said it two or three years ago and I stand by it – I will be surprised if this building gets off anytime soon. Atrium stole their tenants before and the roth site will steal them again as they provide more flexibility in design and construction.

[Mike K.]

That's the likeliest scenario, baconnbits. The Jawl's are already the landlords of various ministries around town and it's far easier to get an existing tenant to upgrade to a new building than it is for a new player to usurp someone else's tenant. This happened with Atrium and BC Ferries (Gateway Green's original target as anchor tenant).

What I also think may be a possibility, particularly for the Roth Site (old Centro project site along the 700-block of Pandora), is several ministries will want to consolidate under one roof and bring together scattered offices. The Roth Site could be a perfect opportunity for the government to lease a new building that creates a campus of ministries at one central location.

The latter is precisely what's driving the office building plans at the Royal BC Museum where many government offices are scattered across bunkers and various nooks around the Legislative precinct. But who knows what will happen there ...and when.

[VicHockeyFan]

The Island Audio space has been leased. Apparently a furniture showroom is moving in.