DISTRIBUTION HUBS
Boundary Bay Industrial
Park anchors Delta’s new
distribution hub
By Paul Tilbury
Chief Operating Officer, The Dayhu Group
C
ommercial real estate near
Deltaport, Canada’s largest container terminal, is about to see a
complete transformation with the opening
of the new billion-dollar highway known
as the South Fraser Perimeter Road. Along
with rising port volumes and the expansion
of the nearby airport, the new highway has
experts touting the area as the next big distribution hub for sizable businesses both
from Canada and the U.S.
A key part of that new distribution
hub is The Dayhu Group’s Boundary Bay
Industrial Park — the area’s largest new
industrial project. Construction has been
underway since the summer, and this fall,
the first tenant was secured with a 100,000
square-feet lease to Apps Express, a fullservice national transportation company
providing warehousing, receiving and
distribution for offshore goods and intraB.C. and Alberta trucking.
“We needed proximity to the port,” says
Apps Express president Rob McDonald.
“It was difficult for our trucks to get out
of Richmond (the previous facility) or back
in, but the new highway gives us more than
one way to get into and out of Vancouver.”
McDonald’s company works with
major Canadian retailers like Canadian
Tire and Toys ‘R Us and he believes
projects like the new Boundary Bay
Industrial Park will pave the way for more
large-scale retailers and their distributors
to locate in Delta’s new industrial hub,
rather than in Alberta where there are
more choices for large industrial space.
Making the trip from the port over the
Rocky Mountains and back to Vancouver
again because the only options for large
warehouse space are in Alberta is not costeffective and has stalled the growth of the
B.C. economy.
Boundary Bay will be complete in May
2014 and will offer a well-built, welllocated space for large companies. It is
just minutes away from Deltaport, the
largest container terminal in Canada,
handling more than 70 per cent of the
region’s inbound container shipment
volume. The project also offers excellent
access to the new South Fraser Perimeter
Road, a new, billion-dollar, four-lane
expressway that connects the port with
Highway 1. Boundary Bay’s location is
ideal as it provides unparalleled access
to the port and the highway, proximity
to the Canada/U.S. border and to Metro
Vancouver’s rail network — resulting in
huge savings in transportation and logistical costs for companies.
The benefit of direct, efficient connectivity between Deltaport and the
new highway system is now set to set to
Artist’s renditions of the Boundary Bay Industrial Park, scheduled for completion in May 2014
28 BC Shipping News February 2014
establish Delta as a key industrial, warehousing and distribution hub. The new
highway in addition to the expansion of
the port, makes Delta more attractive to
industrial property investors. But there
are few opportunities to develop industrial real estate projects of this size.
Tier one industrial distribution space
in the Vancouver market is very difficult
to find. The Boundary Bay Industrial
Park is effectively the only option under
construction that can offer contiguous
space of this magnitude — up to 900,000
square feet.
The Boundary Bay project also features
two large buildings of 440,000 square feet
each as well as 156 loading docks and 200
trailer parking spaces. Another unique
feature of Dayhu’s distribution facility is
its 36-foot ceilings, allowing for significantly more cubic storage. The new ceiling heights allow for a smaller building
footprint and to build up rather than out,
increasing storage capacity at a time when
light industrial storage space is limited.
Paul Tilbury is COO of The Dayhu
Group, a privately-held, family-owned
business. With the completion of Boundary
Bay Industrial Park, the company will
own and manage 4.5 million square feet of
industrial and commercial property in B.C.
and Alberta.