Lead8’s vision of using mass timber for a sustainable community, and other news

For PropertyGuru’s real estate news roundup, Lead8 seeks to transform Vancouver’s False Creek waterfront into a world-class, sustainable community that leverages mass timber construction. In other news, Riyadh leads Saudi Arabia’s real estate sector, thanks to population and employment growth. Finally, Australia’s logistics and industrial real estate markets were hit by slow demand in the third quarter.

Lead8 designs mass timber concept for Vancouver waterfront

Lead8 has produced a conceptual vision to transform Vancouver’s last remaining city-owned and large vacant plot of land along its False Creek waterfront; the well-known South East False Creek site between Cambie Street Bridge and Olympic Village.

The team at Lead8 saw the 22-acre site as an opportunity to imagine a world-class, sustainable community and leverage mass timber construction to establish a distinctive and visionary city destination.

“At Lead8, we always look for opportunities to contribute our expertise to address urban challenges. Mass timber is an exciting and sustainable building method that is gaining popularity and has the ability to solve many of our environmental issues in the design and development industry. The South East False Creek site serves as a great area to showcase how mass timber destinations can transform our future cities,” said Claude Touikan, Co-Founder & Executive Director at Lead8.

Lead8 Hong Kong Limited is the architectural and retail planning consultant for 11 SKIES, the largest retail, dining and entertainment destination in Hong Kong developed by New World Development Company Limited and operated by K11. Its developer, New World Development Company Limited, garnered the award of Best Developer (Asia), at the PropertyGuru Asia Property Awards Grand Final 2022. Along with Lead8, the company also received the Best Mega Mixed Use Development (Asia) award for 11 SKIES.

Saudi Arabia’s real estate sector is led by Riyadh

Strong population and employment growth in Riyadh contribute to an increase in real estate transactions and a scarcity of available properties.

A recent report from real estate consulting firm CBRE states that transactions in Jeddah and Dammam also increased during the previous year.

The Saudi government wants to increase the percentage of homeowners in the country to 70 percent as part of Vision 2030. According to a recent estimate from the research team at Sico Bank, 62 to 65 percent of Saudi nationals are currently homeowners.

According to the CBRE report cited in PropertyNews.ae, Riyadh’s residential transactions increased by almost 52 percent in the second quarter of 2024 compared to the same period the year before. Despite prices remaining unchanged for the previous few years, Jeddah saw a 43 percent increase in sales, while Dammam saw a little over 22 percent increase.

Logistics rents hit by e-commerce slowdown in Australia

The once surging logistics and industrial real estate markets were hit by slowing face rental growth in the third quarter as elevated demand from third-party logistics providers spurred by e-commerce orders cooled down.

Real estate agency JLL found that effective rents fell by 1.8 percent nationally, as incentives paid to tenants bumped up in most markets, hitting the first negative quarterly reading since March 2021.

JLL Research said face rental growth slowed to 0.9 per cent quarter-on-quarter, though annual growth remained strong at 12.5 percent year-on-year. “The logistics occupier market has changed substantially over the course of this year,” said JLL head of logistics and industrial, Australia, Peter Blade in realcommercial.com.au. “Third-party logistics companies are waiting to secure a particular contract before they commit to new facilities.”

The Property Report editors wrote this article. For more information, email: [email protected].