Sarah Fullbrook

Vancouver-based Skunkwerks Software Inc. has built a business model around continuous innovation. It funds in-house research and development projects and rolls those projects into separate companies once they become self-sustaining. Rizwan Kheraj, industrial technology adviser at the National Research Council and an early consultant at Skunkwerks, points to a perfect...

In September 2012 the B.C. Land Title Survey Authority launched an electronic automated-filing system that was four years in the making. The system that once relied on mail-in submissions and document requests now handles more than 90 per cent of the one million transactions it processes each year electronically. According to the...

Billed as the smallest self-contained apartments in Canada, microlofts built by Reliance Properties Ltd. in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside are redefining the boundaries of urban living. With the smallest suite clocking in at 229 square feet, these rental apartments offer something previously unheard of: affordable living space for young singles working...

In a press release from last week Los Angeles-based CBRE Group Inc., a commercial real estate services and investment firm, summed up information from their National Office and Industrial First Quarter 2013 Statistical Summary. The focus was Canadian office construction, office and industrial real estate and the complicated question of...

This morning the Vancouver chapter of NAIOP Commercial Real Estate Development Association held a panel discussion on B.C. retail real estate entitled "Unconventional Retail—The Unique West Coast Retail Real Estate Market." Lenora Gates, owner of Orange National Retail Group Inc. and president of Gates Real Estate Services Ltd., moderated the discussion...

On February 28, 2013 Anthem Properties Group Ltd. finalized the acquisition of the historic Save On Meats building in downtown Vancouver. The building, at 43 West Hastings Street, was first erected in 1891 and has been the home of restaurateur/entrepreneur Mark Brand's revamped Save On Meats deli and diner since...

On March 14th, Vancouver-based commercial real estate services company Avison Young released their semi-annual review of office, industrial, retail and multi-family property sales greater than $5 million in B.C. Despite continued economic trouble south of the boarder, B.C. saw a banner year in 2012 with such real estate investment passing the...

For the first time since 2009, commercial real estate transactions in Greater Vancouver surpassed the $5 billion mark in 2012, according to the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver. The REBGV collects data through its real estate operating system, Commercial Edge, which includes all commercial real estate transactions in the Lower...

First elected to City Hall in 2005, Councillor Heather Deal has made it her mission to liven Vancouver’s streets through cultural attractions and festivals like the Cultural Olympiad and the city’s 125th-anniversary Summer Live concerts. But to see real proof of Deal’s mark on the city, look no further than...

In his role with the Greater Vancouver Gateway Council (GVGC), Bob Wilds is shaping the course of Vancouver’s future as a major Asia Pacific gateway. Tasked with managing the disparate needs of local transit operators—from shipping and trucking companies to airports and seaports—the GVGC acts as liaison between public and...

For a city as young as Vancouver, it’s fitting that the man behind much of its most exciting development is a young gun himself. Robert Fung, the 46-year-old president of real estate development firm The Salient Group, was one of the biggest forces in turning Gastown into Vancouver’s hippest neighbourhood...

Last week Vancouver’s City Hall passed a motion allowing a sizable increase in the height restrictions to new developments in Chinatown. While much of the area has historically been subject to a 65-foot height cap, the first building to be approved under the new height rules is slotted to be...