Vancouver?s Last Inner Harbour Marina Goes on Market
Chuck Chiang
The Vancouver Sun
The bustling Vancouver waterfront may soon see even more boating activity, as one of the city’s last remaining water lots dedicated to marina usage — large enough to house passenger ferries — goes on the market.
The 6.2-acre (2.5-hectare) site, located directly in front of the Vancouver Convention Centre’s newer West Building, is being sold through Colliers International and will likely garner significant interest given the shortage of marina space in the city, said Mark Lester, the agency’s senior vice-president of unique properties in Vancouver.
“Finding a marina development opportunity in the Lower Mainland is very, very challenging,” said Lester. “There just aren’t those opportunities available. … We may sell two or three in one year and none the next, but there aren’t that many around.”
The property is also special because of its location, which Lester calls “a landmark”, and the fact the lot is a clean-slate for a buyer to come in and develop something completely new.
“This is a development opportunity,” he said of the site, which could handle vessels up to 300 feet. “Any marinas we’ve handled … have been existing. In those cases, you are selling an income-producing asset (instead of a chance to develop).”
The lot is part of the permit given to the Vancouver Convention Centre, a parcel of which was built into the Harbour Flight Centre (which entered service in 2011). The zoning plans had also called for a marina for larger boats, and officials say some regulatory approval and environmental studies have already been done, potentially shortening the time a buyer would be able to start construction.
Michael Short, the marina sector representative for Boating BC and a certified marina manager, noted that most marinas in the region are at capacity, with demand highest for vessels between 35 and 65 feet. He said that, while he is unaware of the details about the new marina lot at the convention centre, any space would give the local industry a boost.
“If you look back at historical photos, there was a lot of marina activity along that entire stretch (of the downtown waterfront) up until 1980,” Short said. “The boating industry is a huge economic driver for British Columbia. Allowing for more capacity, obviously, allows for more boats. If you have a limited amount of space, then you might deter people from getting into boating.”
He added that the public may have the misconception that marinas are only for yacht owners and people in the fishing sector, but the reality is that a marina is almost its own economic ecosystem, housing tour companies, ferry services, and charters, in addition to private uses. As such, a new marina would generate a significant number of jobs and more income for the community.
“It’s not just a place where people park boats and is shut off from the rest of society,” Short said. “They are really a kind of micro-economy, in and among themselves, where you have not only the vessels that are stored there, but also typically some commercial entities working out of there. All those vessels are being serviced by all kinds of marine professionals, so there’s just a lot of activities that goes on.”
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