Woodland Park
1030 Cecile Drive

SOLD

Master Planned Community Development Vision

• Unentitled land and anti-development city council elected
• Invested into our property vision with state-of-the-art marketing campaign
• Spoke to a vast audience and focused on the right part of it
• All hurdles were overcome and the goal was achieved

Creating the Vision and Perseverance Paid Off

In April of 2018, the property ownership company, not based in B.C., approached David Venance to provide them with a professional opinion of value in the interest of selling this 200-unit rental townhome property which they had built 55 years prior, situated on 23 acres of land, which was ripe for modern multifamily redevelopment.

The high-level market valuation book ends presented a significant gap. Applying the most relevant market sale comparable metrics, which were from the adjacent property of similar age, zoning and asset type suggested a potential value of approximately $100,000,000. However, the sale comp of $32,000,000 was around a third of the scale of the subject property, and it sold the previous year in more favorable market conditions. The market for the significantly increased deal size was not nearly as deep in terms of qualified prospective investors with more sophistication in their underwriting and deal qualification criteria. Additionally, we were experiencing a market shift to a bare perspective on land redevelopment deals from the bullish run in the market over the prior three to four years.

Although the subject property, given the age of improvements, the excess land and housing supply objectives of the community make the lands ripe for redevelopment, the community plan did not suggest any development metrics to guide potential density to the development communities market participants. With that in mind our best investment metric to communicate to the market would be based on capitalizing the existing income, which only suggested a value around $65,000,000, which was more aligned with the properties assessed value.

We needed identify a credible and compelling story far beyond that if this value. The owner’s interest in selling was based on a corporate restructure and so divesting the Property would only make sense if a certain price level could be achieved, and furthermore, if it completed that calendar year. The biggest marketing hurdle was a municipal election taking place in the fall and a motion from an anti-development Port Moody councilor to rezone the property to “rental only” which would dilute the potential land value significantly.

David agreed to list, market and arrange for the sale of the property using a full exposure program tailored to the Vendor’s disposition objective and requirements. The tailored marketing campaign was very successful considering the mangy challenges and hurdles faced. On the bid date we received multiple bids of interest from an array of investor types which all followed our guidance parameters. Our client was very well positioned to make the right decision, which wasn’t just based on the purchase price.

The site sold in last December of 2018 for $97,500,000 to an established and growing local development firm; Edgar Development Corp. The perseverance, determination and long-term vision they employed paid off and our client’s objectives were all achieved!