Wesbild has sold a major industrial property on North Vancouver’s waterfront after opting not to pursue development attempts there any longer.

The property is located at 1371 McKeen Avenue. Wesbild said the company lease back two buildings on the property and continue to operate a pair of businesses that use the spaces.

Wesbild said the 27.5-acre site, one of the last privately held industrial properties of its size in North Vancouver, has been acquired by a Canadian institutional investor.

Wesbild originally purchased the property in 2017 and undertook redevelopment efforts to introduce both large industrial and flex-industrial spaces.

“After several development applications with the District of North Vancouver that did not proceed, we had to pivot and focus on renovating the existing warehouses that provide much needed industrial and storage (IOS) space,” said Kevin Layden, Wesbild’s president and CEO.

“With industrial vacancy at less than 1% in North Vancouver, and with industrial rents in the range of $25 to $27 per square foot, businesses in North Vancouver are challenged by increased costs. Across Metro Vancouver, we need more industrial space. But we need a reset in thinking about industrial land in development in Metro Vancouver if we are to compete on the world stage.”

CBRE represented Wesbild in the divestment. Tony Quattrin, vice-chair of firm’s national investment team, said the “landmark transaction” represents a significant sale in the emerging IOS asset class.

“There’s a number of large institutional investors around the globe showing interest in IOS, which offers land with future development potential, as well as current income,” Quattrin said. “We are delighted with the sale as it brought in a well-known Canadian institutional investor. With the limited amount of industrial land in Metro Vancouver, the investor here took a long-term view that it was a good investment for reasonably priced land supported by a strong holding income.”

Wesbild, a Vancouver-based real estate developer, has more than 40 years of experience in master-planned residential, commercial, and industrial developments across Western Canada. Its ongoing projects include large-scale residential communities in Coquitlam, B.C., and Canada’s largest stacked industrial strata development, Marine Landing, in south Vancouver.