Photo: Contributed
On the day a consulting group named Kelowna the second best small city in Canada, Epic Real Estate Solutions threw a party to highlight the many densification projects it is currently marketing.
A lot of people want to live in Kelowna, and Epic is working with several development companies to get those people into the city’s red-hot housing market. On Wednesday it invited the Kelowna real estate community and a few other special guests to Laurel Packinghouse to highlight the burgeoning development scene.
One of the attendees was Sid Landolt, a partner at Vancouver’s S&P Real Estate and also an investor in One Varsity—a proposed 35-storey tower at 1405 St. Paul St. that will cater primarily to students at the future UBCO downtown campus. Landolt has done business all over the world but had not invested in Kelowna since 1996. Now he’s back, because the new landscape was too enticing to pass up.
“I chose Kelowna as one of the markets in which I’m involved in the development of a property for three reasons,” Landolt said. “One, because it has a vision. The second is immigration. That everything drives. And third is the flow of capital into this area. When capital comes and things are improved, it’s better for everybody.
“As an international real estate person, I look at those three things. Where is a place going? What is the population doing? Is capital coming into the market? That’s the foundation.”
In addition to One Varsity, Epic is marketing future developments like Movala and ONE Water Street in Kelowna, The Residences at Lakeview Village in West Kelowna, Lakehouse in Summerland and Riverside Drive in Penticton.
Epic president Shane Styles said the key to housing affordability is not simply adding more homes, but ensuring there is a wide array of options for buyers.
“It’s not just around the number of bedrooms or the number of bathrooms,” Styles said. “It’s around location. Are they close to transit? Therefore, they can drop a vehicle. They can drop a vehicle payment and an insurance payment so it becomes more affordable. Is it closer to their kids’ school or the activities that they do on a regular basis? Those sorts of things. That’s what increasing supply is about.
“The city of Kelowna, the planning department in particular and the development community are responding really well to that.”
Landolt agrees with Styles about Kelowna’s densification enthusiasm, pointing out he is used to butting heads with city councils around the world. That does not happen in Kelowna, and that’s why he believes its potential is off the charts.
“Kelowna is in the middle of a stage of what I call becoming,” Landolt said. “It’s becoming one of the greatest small cities, quite frankly, in the world.”
