The Vancouver Sun reports in its Friday edition another a small office tower -- the 212,000-square-foot United Kingdom building, which might best be described as a B class structure -- in central Vancouver sold for $122-million on Monday. Postmedia's Garry Marr writes the buyer of 409 Granville St. was from mainland China.
At $600 a square foot, the price might be 50 per cent more than the going rate for similar office buildings in the area. The property, however, is on top of a SkyTrain station. "I think the Chinese are buying the land for speculation as much as the building," a source told Mr. Marr. Quietly, Chinese investment in the Canadian commercial market is heating up. Reuters reported in August that Anbang Insurance purchased a land lease that gives it control of the HSBC building in Toronto's financial district.
Anbang made a splash in New York's property market last year by buying the famed Waldorf Astoria for $1.9-billion (U.S.).
The land lease for the HSBC building at 70 York St., which gives the buyers ownership of the property for a set period of time, was purchased from Brookfield Office Properties for about $110-million, one of the highest recent valuations for a building in Toronto.
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