Parker comes from a couple of decades in the building industry in the Lower Mainland of Vancouver. He initially came to Nanaimo to build one specific property, but after getting there and starting work, we saw “great opportunity for growth” in the city. Inspired by what he saw, he created Principle Property Group to be a fullservice developer, one capable of providing the full complement of development services, from land acquisition all the way through to design, construction, and sales and marketing. Principle has two integrated companies – one that looks after the project management, called Parkshore Projects, and another that looks after the trade services, called Parkon Construction Ltd. When he got there, Parker recalls being surprised that land so promising was available relatively little expense. He remembers identifying a parcel of two city blocks that had been rezoned in 2008 from single family to medium density. These were blocks that that touched the downtown center and were only three blocks from the waterfront with unobstructed ocean views. “In other urban markets that I’ve seen, when something gets rezoned like that, developers are lining up to buy the property at premium prices,” Parker explains. “Nanaimo, to me, was a real anomaly. I thought it was odd all this land was undeveloped and frankly, the prices had not gone up. I figured I must have been missing something, but after some due diligence, I wasn’t. It was just that the land wasn’t on anyone’s radar. It was considered to be in an undesirable part of town, as often happens with cities that have urban and suburban sprawl. We saw the potential and started to strategically purchase land that fit in to AUGUST 2024
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTYzNTg=