Former World Journal site sold in Vancouver's Grandview-Woodland neighbourhood
The former location of the shuttered World Journal Vancouver, a Chinese-language daily that ceased operations in January, has been sold.
A block south of the famous East Van cross, 2288 Clark Drive was offered on the market for $6.3 million by Cushman & Wakefield, the commercial real-estate services firm engaged by the defunct paper’s parent company.
Cushman & Wakefield vice president Boe Iravani declined to reveal the final price until the transaction closed. Iravani told the Georgia Straight in a phone interview that the industrial property at Clark and East 7th Avenue (near the VCC-Clark Station of SkyTrain’s Millennium Line) is not being contemplated for future residential use.
The 17,200-square-foot lot is at the western edge of Grandview-Woodland, a neighbourhood whose community plan is being updated by city staff. Council previously convened a citizens’ assembly to offer nonbinding suggestions to guide future developments. This followed strong community opposition to initial ideas offered by city staff, which included 11 high-rise towers around the Commercial-Broadway SkyTrain station.
According to Iravani, the buyer of 2288 Clark Drive intends to renovate the existing building, keep the land’s industrial zoning, and use the property for business purposes and to create employment.
The regional-context statement adopted by council in 2013, which outlines the city’s plans and policies in support of Metro Vancouver’s growth strategy, reiterated Vancouver’s commitment to protect industrial lands.
A report included in the Friday (May 6) agenda of Metro Vancouver’s regional planning committee noted that from mid-2011 to the end of 2014, the Lower Mainland lost 63 hectares of industrial lands to other uses like residential.
Comments