After more than a year and a half on the market, the high-profile retail complex at the intersection of Granville Street and Robson Street in downtown Vancouver has been sold, STOREYS has learned, in what is the largest retail property transaction in British Columbia so far this year.
The retail complex is located at 798 Granville Street, at the northeast corner of Granville Street and Robson Street. For many years, the anchor tenants have been Best Buy and Winners. The Best Buy was formerly a Future Shop, while the Winners was relocated earlier this year and replaced with a Marshalls. Other retailers in the complex, located along Granville Street, include Café Crêpe, North Face, Vans, Claire's, and Sleep Country, among others.
The three-storey shopping complex, which spans roughly half of the block between Robson Street and W Georgia Street, was originally constructed in 2002 and houses over 90,000 sq. ft of leasable space, according to BC Assessment, which values the property at $111,691,000 in an assessment dated to July 1, 2024.
The property was listed for sale in late-2023, as first reported by STOREYS, by Martin Moriarty and Mario Negris of Marcus & Millchap alongside Jim Szabo, Tony Quattrin, and Vincent Minichiello of CBRE.
The 798 Granville Street property is owned by Bonnis Properties, which recently sold the property to GJ Group Robson Inc. for $140,000,000, in the latest example that the market for retail assets remains relatively active compared to other asset classes.
The sale price exceeds the previous top retail transaction of the year, which was Shato Holdings' acquisition of Willowbrook Park in Langley for $137,000,000 in February. Rounding out the top three for 2025 so far is Finix Holdings' acquisition of the Cottonwood Centre in Chilliwack for $115,000,000 in May.
Bonnis Properties
View of the 798 Granville Street retail complex from along Granville Street. / Google Maps
A longtime owner of numerous high-profile properties along Granville Street, Bonnis Properties has been actively selling or trying to sell many of its properties over the past two years.
Earlier this year, it sold the Hudson Mall directly east of the Hudson's Bay building for $89 million, as first reported by STOREYS in March. Prior to the sale, the Winners at 798 Granville Street was relocated to Hudson Mall.
Just prior to that, Bonnis Properties sold the Hollywood Theatre and Hollywood Residences in Kitsilano for a total of $47.5 million to Dayhu Group. Last year, Bonnis Properties sold the the large retail complex at 2211 W 4th Avenue for $100 million to Toronto-based Salthill Capital.
In 2023, prior to listing 798 Granville Street, Bonnis Properties sold 728-796 Main Street — a development site where they had proposed an 11-storey building with strata and social housing — for over $20 million to the Hogan's Alley Society. Bonnis had previously reached an agreement to sell the property to Epix Investments, but the transaction fell apart and Epix subsequently filed a civil suit over the deposit, with the Supreme Court ultimately ordering Bonnis to return the deposit. Also in 2023, Bonnis sold the multi-level commercial property at 535 Granville Street for $17.8 million to 1003333 BC Ltd.
Besides selling its properties, Bonnis has also been very active developing new projects, submitting rezoning applications for three major projects this year.
The most significant, of course, is its proposal for 800-876 Granville Street, where it has revised its proposal to two towers up to 43 storeys above the Commodore Ballroom. Over in East Vancouver, Bonnis is developing a 14-storey and 25-storey tower at 602-644 Kingsway and 603-617 E 16th Avenue. In the Broadway Plan area, Bonnis is then developing a 32-storey tower at 365-395 W Broadway, not far from City Hall.
