Jones Lang LaSalle

LaSalle Investment Buys Vancouver Office Building
March 28, 2006
By Russ Colchamiro, Executive Editor


Doing what few U.S.-based companies have done before, LaSalle Investment Management has acquired an office property in Vancouver. Chicago-based LaSalle Investment Management purchased 777 West Broadway (pictured), a 75,000-square-foot, 12-story office building with retail on the ground, from an institutional investor for almost $22.8 million, or about $304 per square foot. The deal closed March 1, but wasn’t announced until yesterday.

"We’re a relatively small landlord here, although we intend to get larger," LaSalle Investment Management senior vice president Peter Martin told CPN today. He noted that there are strong fundamentals on the demand side in regard to Vancouver office properties, but limited supply.

But with Vancouver as host of the 2010 Winter Olympics, "we are seeing increasing demand for all property types. (The games) provide a lot of international exposure to our market," he explained.

"There’s certainly potential for outside investment," noted Greg McPhie, managing partner for the British Columbia practice with NAI Commercial, the Canadian affiliate of NAI Global. While U.S. acquisitions are uncommon in Vancouver, he pointed to a transaction that closed in September, wherein Seattle-based Goodman Real Estate Inc. purchased the Hotel Georgia and the 3750,000 square feet of developable land adjacent to it, for about $55.6 million U.S.

"Just like all of the U.S. West Coast, our market is characterized by lack of supply and few AAA office transactions each year, with smaller tenancies," McPhie said. "Foreign investors are a relatively small part of the investment equation here. They are competing against Canadian investors and a lot of high net worth investors from Asia. Which is what makes this deal notable."