Avison Young provides updates
Vancouver’s suburban office markets saw vacancy rates dropped on a quarterly basis in Q2 2023, according to Avison Young.
In particular, vacancy declines in Richmond, Surrey, New Westminster, and the North Shore provided greater robustness to the sector.
“Richmond experienced a burst of deals around the Airport Executive Park complex – a mixture of class A and B buildings in the heart of the submarket,” Avison Young reported. “Surrey also registered a number of new leases, with Manning Elliott taking 8,600 sf at The Professional Centre @ Southpoint.”
Higher construction costs are also supporting suburban absorption, “[leading] many tenants to renew their leases and recommit to their office footprints.”
Vancouver’s suburban office sector registered approximately 29,500 square feet of positive quarterly absorption as of the end of Q2, Avison Young said.
At the same time, market dynamics in the downtown core and Yaletown pushed Metro Vancouver’s vacancy rate to 10%, “with a substantial number of leases expiring without renewal across the downtown core.”
“Head lease vacancy accounted for three-quarters of the total increase in vacant space downtown during Q2 2023,” Avison Young said. “This pattern was a result of occupiers waiting out their lease expiry before decommitting to office space.
“It is expected that more head lease premises will become vacant as the year and macroeconomic uncertainty progress.”
