In BC’s largest single multifamily sale of 2015, Starlight Investments has acquired Burnaby’s Lougheed Village Apartments, a four-building apartment complex. CBRE SVP Lance Coulson takes us behind the deal.

Comprising two 24-storey rental towers and two eight-storey concrete rental towers, Lougheed Village sold for a reported $160M (Lance couldn't confirm due to confidentiality) to Toronto-based Starlight by Beach Properties. Beach bought the complex in 2012 and saw "significant gains” says Lance, who repped the vendor in the off-market deal and brought the opportunity to Starlight. The site includes a 50k SF retail concourse and is close to a SkyTrain station and Lougheed Town Centre. There's limited concrete product in Metro Vancouver, says Lance, so it's extremely rare for a buyer to have opportunity to acquire four buildings and hundreds of units in a single deal.

The Lougheed Village acquisition was one of three major BC multi-res transactions this year for Starlight, which Lance says is seeking scale in the province to create operational and management synergies within its existing West Coast portfolio. The firm bought 735-739 Carnarvon St in New Westminster, a 19-storey high-rise tower with 106 units. In Victoria, it’s acquired four concrete rental buildings (415-435 Michigan St and 350-360 Douglas St), 392 units total. The three deals, valued at $260M, bring Starlight’s presence in Victoria and Vancouver to 14 concrete apartment towers and one mid-rise building, 1,500 units in all.

There’s upside potential at Lougheed Village, including opportunities to modernize and turn over suites and possibly add density to the 7.39-acre rental site, one of Metro Vancouver’s largest. “It’s got everything an institution like Starlight is looking for,” points out Lance, who's having a big 2015. His team at CBRE's National Apartment Group is leading BC in the sale of investment-grade apartment transactions. And in September Lance brokered Canadian Apartment Properties REIT’s $170M acquisition of 22 apartment buildings in seven Vancouver-area municipalities, BC’s largest-ever one-time multifamily portfolio trade. “It’s been a historic year on a lot of fronts.”