The Regus Group has acquired eight executive office suites
Bruce Constantineau
Sun
British-based office space provider Regus Group has purchased eight Vancouver-area executive office suites, six in an already squeezed downtown market that’s expected to tighten even further in 2006.
The value of the deal wasn’t disclosed but the move doubles its presence in the Canadian office market.
Along with the downtown business centres Regus Group acquired space in Burnaby and Richmond. Regus Group already operates eight other Canadian business centres — in Toronto, Mississauga, Calgary and Montreal.
“We bought these Vancouver properties because of a growing demand from our customers to enter the Vancouver market, which is an important business market for North America,” Regus Group representative Shari Aponte said in an interview. “We want to give our customers the ability to work wherever they need to be.”
Regus Group operates a network of 750 business centres, providing fully furnished and equipped offices in 60 countries. Customers lease the office facilities under flexible agreements for periods of time ranging from days to years, depending on their needs.
“Our pre-established infrastructure allows customers to set up an immediate presence in a market,” Aponte said.
The Vancouver purchase includes a total of 156,000 square feet of office space, including 452 offices and 27 meeting rooms. The deal sees Regus Group buying the ongoing business operations and taking over the existing office leases from the previous owners.
Five of the business centres were previously owned by Vancouver-based Pinnacle Executive Centres Inc. while three were owned by Insignia International Inc.
Touraj Besharat, one of three former principals in Pinnacle Executive Centres, said the company has operated business centres in Vancouver since 1984 and chose to sell now because Regus offered a good deal and the principals are approaching retirement age.
“We weren’t particularly looking to sell but they put forward a proposal that made sense to us,” he said.
Besharat said the business centres have remained active recently as the demand for Vancouver office space continues to rise.
Colliers International recently predicted the downtown Vancouver office space vacancy rate will fall from 6.6 per cent to five per cent this year, as tenants absorb about 350,000 square feet of vacant space. The vacancy rate in the Broadway corridor is expected to drop from 4.9 per cent to 4.2 per cent this year while the suburban vacancy rate is projected to fall from 9.6 per cent to 9.1 per cent.