8286 161 Street in Surrey. (Zolo)

The City of Surrey has acquired a parcel of land that was under foreclosure, according to documents filed in the Supreme Court of British Columbia obtained by The Realist.

The property is 8286 161 Street, a 0.771-acre corner parcel at the intersection of 161 Street and 83 Avenue in the Fleetwood neighbourhood of Surrey.

The vacant piece of land is located about two blocks away from the intersection of 160 Street and the Fraser Highway, where the future Fleetwood Station is currently being constructed as part of the Surrey-Langley SkyTrain.

Under the Province’s transit-oriented area (TOA) legislation and the designations implemented by the City, 8286 161 Street is considered a Tier 3 TOA.

8286 161 Street is a Tier 3 TOA. (BC Assessment / City of Surrey)

The property was previously owned by Burnaby-based developer Quarry Rock Developments, which saw at least nine of their projects become insolvent, as I reported in April 2024. The 8286 161 Street property was beneficially owned by QRD (Fleetwood OAP) Limited Partnership under QRD (Fleetwood OAP) Holdings Inc.

The foreclosure was initiated on February 27, 2024 by VWR Capital Corp. and Overland Capital Canada Inc. pertaining to a first-ranking mortgage agreement the two sides entered into in June 2023 for the principal amount of $5,400,000. The interest rate was set at 13.25%, compounding monthly and payable in equal monthly installments of $59,625.00, according to court documents.

The Supreme Court granted the Order Nisi on May 14, 2024 confirming the outstanding debt at $5,946,289.82 and then granted conduct of sale to the lenders on December 4, 2024.

Almost exactly a year later, the lenders entered into a sale agreement with the City of Surrey on December 8 that would see the City buy the property for $5,200,000. The court application seeking approval for the sale said “The Petitioners believes the sale price is reasonable, appropriate and provident, and is the only viable offer received to date” and the court approved the sale on February 23.

The sale was brokered by Jamie Schreder of Schreder Brothers Real Estate Group, which listed the property with an asking price of $5,890,000 and marketed the property based on the TOA potential.

However, that is not what the City of Surrey intends to do with the site. In a brief statement provided to The Realist, the City of Surrey confirmed the transaction and said the City “intends to utilize the land as a future community park.”

It’s unclear whether this factored into the price, but BC Assessment values the property at $2,483,000, meaning the City paid double the assessed value for a TOA development site that it does not intend to use for TOA development, and appears to have been bidding against nobody. Nonetheless, the lenders still took a loss.