Bruce Constantineau
Sun
Daniel Drimmer, president of TransGlobe, at 570 Dunsmuir St., bought for $15 million. Photograph by : Bill Keay, Vancouver Sun
Toronto-based TransGlobe Property Management Services has purchased an eight-storey downtown Vancouver office building at 570 Dunsmuir Street for about $15 million — the company’s third major Lower Mainland real estate acquisition in the past nine months.
“We are actively looking to grow our B.C. presence,” TransGlobe president Daniel Drimmer said in an interview. “I really like the West Coast because it has all the right fundamentals we’re looking for now. A strong condo market puts pressure on the affordable housing market, and it’s the same thing in the office market — not too much office space available.”
The Dunsmuir property — known as the Churchill Building — was acquired from Vancouver-based Churchill II Real Estate LP, a subsidiary of Churchill International Property Corp., which bought the building for $11.19 million in December 2004. It had previously been owned by now-defunct Vancouver investment company Eron Mortgage Corp.
Drimmer said he likes the 70,000-square-foot building’s downtown site near the BCIT campus and the Granville SkyTrain station. Tenants include three educational institutions, and various retail and commercial operations.
Churchill International president Philip Langridge said his company bought the building as a long-term investment in 2004, but received an unsolicited bid from TransGlobe and negotiated an attractive selling price of about $15 million. He said Churchill bought the property under a foreclosure situation that was forced upon Eron Mortgage, which planned to renovate the building and sell it for a profit before the firm fell apart in 1997.
© The Vancouver Sun 2006