Approximately two million square feet of suburban office space is sitting vacant, representing more than two-thirds of all the vacant offices in Metro Vancouver, according to a report from commercial realtor Avison Young.
Among the worst hit is Richmond, where 785,628 square feet of space is empty, including nearly 70,000 square feet of sublease space that has gone dark in the past year.
Surrey, New Westminster and Burnaby are also posting double-digit office vacancies, with 966,000 square feet of empty space in Burnaby alone.
The suburban slowdown is in contrast to downtown Vancouver, which is seeing the highest lease-up of office space in five years. The downtown vacancy rate has plunged to 3.9 per cent, down from 5 per cent a year earlier, Avison Young reports.
from Western Investor March 2012
