« Urban Home Ownership Pays Off | Main | Squamish: Millionaires Club? »

Brix at Commercial: Kensington-Cedar Cottage

Townhomes in Vancouver are in short supply and when you couple a low-supply unit in a growth-demand area you get an attractive development to both investors and homebuyers. Brix at Commercial is situated on a two-block portion of Commercial that has been the home of light-industrial activity for years despite being surrounded by a neighbourhood of single-family homes. While it may take a little vision to imagine the transformation this part of Commerical drive will undergo in the coming months and years, it certainly is worth a look. Not only are you within walking distance of some of this city's best eclectic food and shopping nearby, but this development is also just a pitching wedge away from the stunning Trout Lake Park and adjacent Community Centre. If you haven't gone for a walk around Trout Lake Park on a nice day or attended the annual Illuminares Lantern Festival, you really should - it's worth it.

The first phase is on sale now, 38 three-storey townhouses and one-storey "garden flats." (Twenty-two have been bought.) The second phase will probably be released this quarter.

"Commercial Street itself is undeniably a work in progress," another Brix buyer, Chris Townsend, comments. "One has to be a bit of a visionary to appreciate the potential that street has. It has a wonderful approach -- a wide boulevard feel on a gentle rise, which is anchored by the elementary school. Once new residential developments emerge on that street and neighbouring streets, and a coffee shop pops up here and there, it will be quite a dynamic place."

"Keep in mind, however, that the culturally diverse hotspot of Commercial Drive is just minutes away." Cameron McNeill of McNeill and Craik Real Estate Solutions, the project's marketer, suspects that only about 18 months separate the current Commercial Street from the ''dynamic'' buyer Townsend is anticipating: There's just too many land transactions going on nearby not to see the inevitability of the residential future on Commercial Street. (Developer inquiries started City Hall on the road to "all residential.'')

There's a refreshing next-best-thing realism to McNeill's advocacy of Brix: It is not a detached-single-family home development, but it is a single-family-home development and it is not occurring in a westside neighbourhood, but it is occurring in a "character neighbourhood less than a 15 minutes' drive from downtown.''

''The over-all Commercial Drive area in the last five years has become really, really popular,'' he says. ''That coupled with the economics of real estate in greater Vancouver have meant prices have increased a lot [in Kensington-Cedar Cottage]. ''A single-family home in this area, if it is a character home, is very expensive. So what the developer envisioned here was a product that filled the niche between the condo and the single-familly home. ''It wasn't going up an elevator, down a hallway and through the front door. What this particular product provides is a sense of your own front yard, your own front door, your own home . . . .''

Yaletown homeowner Townsend bought a "courtyard" townhome, three storeys, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, two terraces, a den and a top-storey deck. "Who wouldn't enjoy that?" The 12-year Vancouver resident reports he was looking for an investment, and not a new home, when he visited the Brix presentation centre. "... I was so impressed by the structure -- it's a very modern townhouse complex with clean lines, over-sized frosted-glass door entries -- by the finishings and the layout that I couldn't help but be drawn to the idea of living there myself." Chris considers the Brix neighbourhood "probably ... one of the city's best kept secrets." "Trout Lake itself is very picturesque and quiet. It's hard to believe that this spacious, tranquil park is less than a 15-minute drive from downtown. Further, nestled on inclining streets are some heritage-style homes; even homes built using the design vernacular of the '70s and '80s look appealing because of the attention to landscaping and the overall appeal of the streetscape." - Canada.com

Name: Brix at Commercial
Location: 3705 Commercial Street
Website: http://www.brixliving.com

Townhouse trailblazers [Canada.com]

January 12, 2005 in New Development | Permalink