Reliance Properties has bought the Upper Harbour Place buildings on Tyee Road in Vic West.
“We do have a firm contract to purchase,” Jon Stovell, president of Reliance, wrote in an email Wednesday.
Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada had listed the Class A office space for sale through Colliers Macaulay Nicolls Inc. since April.
The two buildings comprise 147,302 square feet of space above Dockside Green on the Upper Harbour, adjacent to the Bay Street Bridge.
In its offering summary, Colliers said the five-storey Upper Harbour Place 2, built in 2007, has 83.5% occupancy and six tenants, including the Times Colonist and Amazon-owned Abebooks.
The four-storey Upper Harbour Place 1, built in 2003, has five tenants, including provincial government ministries. It has an occupancy rate of 88.6%.
Other major tenants in the buildings include Read Jones Christoffersen, Pharmaceutical Research Associates, Stantec Consulting and the B.C. Construction Association.
Reliance Properties, based in Vancouver, has been an active player in Victoria’s development scene. The company received council approval in early August for its plans to redevelop the heritage Northern Junk buildings.
Reliance also redeveloped the Janion Hotel property in 2013.
The company is proposing a 6.7-acre re-imagining of Victoria’s downtown in what could be one of the city’s biggest redevelopments.
Reliance is proposing a transformation from the foreshore of Victoria’s Upper Harbour east to Government Street, between Discovery and Chatham streets. The area includes the historic Capital Iron building and its parking lot, Mark’s Work Wearhouse and other stores.
The Victoria 3.0 plan, adopted by council last year, calls for an arts and innovation district in the area. Reliance’s plan caters to the vision, with live/work studios for artists and a proposal to provide land at the corner of Store and Discovery streets to the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria.
