Brooklyn selling quickly
Kirk Penton - Sep 18, 2018 - Biz Releases

Photo: Kirk Penton
The display home has a 17th-floor feel.

Brooklyn at Bernard Block has already sold 70 per cent of its units before it opens up to the public this weekend, and the Mission Group developers behind the project believe that is because the people who are buying are actually going to live there.

There is still a wide variety of price points available for consumers, which is not the way they usually sell in Kelowna. Usually the most affordable units go first, but Brooklyn is selling primarily from the top down and at different locations throughout the building.

Mission Group development vice-president Luke Turri said the impending speculation tax has likely hindered sales somewhat, but he was still “surprised” at the strength of the launch.

“Our goal, whenever we’re designing a program for a building, is to have the sales process go in this sort of way, where you’ve got a fairly even skew to where homes are purchased throughout the building—not just from top to bottom, but also throughout the floor plate of the building,” Turri said.

“So what we have seen, at least from the demand and the demand for the remaining homes, is a range of different interests in different housing types. So for a developer that’s fantastic, because we’ve hit the mark in terms of that niche. That doesn’t always happen, but it looks like it’s gone fairly well for Brooklyn.”

Mission Group will open Brooklyn’s presentation centre on Saturday at noon. It features a fully furnished, two-bedroom display home with a realistic view from the 17th floor.

The 25-storey building, which was approved by Kelowna city council on Aug. 28, will be located on St. Paul Street, just north of the presentation centre on Bernard Avenue. Piling will begin in the new year, and the building should be ready by early 2021.

Eighty per cent of the purchasers so far hail from Greater Vancouver and Kelowna, and the Mission Group is finding they are people who are looking for their forever home.

“In 2008 you had that oil and gas money that was kind of fuelling this,” Mission Group’s Dustin Fenske said. “The money that’s coming in now is more real money. It’s Baby Boomer money. So they’re looking at this as, ‘We’re retiring in the next two to three years. We want to get our foot in the door.’

“Locals in Kelowna are coming out of the detached home. They want to move into the city. They don’t want to have to get into their car and go grocery shopping. They want to take the elevator down and go across the street.”

Turri and Fenske said the lower-level, more affordable homes would have already been sold if it had been primarily investors buying, but the wide range means the most affordable units, which go for $349,900, are still available.

“The fact it’s still available,” Fenske said, “is mind-boggling.”


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