LangleyAdvance
Sharing a stage with a superstar pg A15
Your community newspaper since 1931
Friday, August 13, 2010
Your source for local sports, news, weather, and entertainment: www.langleyadvance.com
Audited circulation: 41,100 – 40 pages
Economic development
Work starts at $15-million site A new auto mall in Langley City will open for business in July of 2011.
OpenRoad president Christian Chia oversaw the groundbreaking of the Richmond-based company’s new dealership in Langley City. When construction is done, special vine maple trees will be added to the site. Heather Colpitts/Langley Advance
by Heather Colpitts
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BMW/Mini moves into Langley next summer. OpenRoad Auto Group just broke ground on a $15.5-million home for the luxury auto brands on the Langley Bypass at Glover Road. Construction will begin promptly and the dealerships will open July 2011. BMW/Mini will be the first tenants of the auto complex being built on the 15.5-acre site. “This is going to be a mecca,” Langley City Mayor Peter Fassbender said at the groundbreaking ceremony. “We’re going to draw people from all over the region.” The project sees luxury dealers being pushed farther out into the Fraser Valley, a market that is expected to expand in the future. Currently luxury dealers are clustered in Vancouver, Richmond and North Vancouver. Fassbender noted that this project, on the gateway to Langley City, will be a catalyst for other initiatives. He noted that the Best Western hotel across the road was undergoing a major revitalization. “We’ve got lots of other exciting things going to happen on this site,” the mayor said. OpenRoad president Christian Chia said it’s the right time to move ahead, despite the difficult economy. “We’re seeing, certainly, the Metro Vancouver market recovering,” he told the Langley Advance. He noted that Canada never saw the economic troubles that were experienced in the U.S.
And the Richmond-based OpenRoad, which has 10 retail locations in the province, is positioning itself for the B.C. marketplace. Chia noted that the average age of the vehicles on B.C. roads is 10 years old, meaning a significant number of motorists will have to replace their vehicles within the next few years. “There’s a natural replacement demand,” he explained. The plan for the Bypass/ Glover site is to have a mixed auto dealership and retail/office development. Conceptual plans call for a 10-acre auto mall, and Chia said that work is continuing to find other dealerships for the complex but nothing can be announced yet. The BMW/Mini dealership will take up about 4.15 acres.
OpenRoad has opted to construct a dealership that meets LEEDs environmental standards, but Chia said it will be up to the other dealerships that come into the project to decide if they will follow suit when they build. The company is citing several advantages to the site, including the population of the South of the Fraser region, the lack of luxury auto dealers in the area, the projected growth rates (expected to be double that of Vancouver and the rest of B.C.), and higher average household incomes. It also helps to be at the junction of two key roadways that see 52,000 vehicles each day. OpenRoad has partnered with Anthem Properties, which will oversee the non-auto tenants. “We have secured a high-end liquor store,” Chia said.
As well, tenants are expected to include coffee shops, a bank, a restaurant in a 5,000-square-foot site, and several tenants for the office space. But no names can be released at this point. Chia explained that the goal is to have about 75 per cent of the space committed before there are any announcements about who is setting up shop there. One factor in OpenRoad and Anthem choosing the Langley City site was the local government’s comprehensive plans for the downtown. Chia said the Downtown Master Plan played a role in the project coming to Langley and made the process more efficient. “We knew exactly where we stood,” he explained. “It makes planning easy. There’s very little left to interpretation.”
Public safety Cherri Chalifour
Live grenade found in granny’s knickknacks
Sandra Ennis
YOUR FRASER VALLEY REAL ESTATE SPECIALISTS
A live grenade was being used as a paperweight in a seniors’ retirement home.
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by Matthew Claxton
TREELAND
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mclaxton@langleyadvance.com
REALTY www.cherriandsandra.com
A grenade with a live fuse was found sitting on a grandmother’s bookshelf in a seniors home in North Langley recently.
The RCMP and bomb squad were called out when family members found the hand grenade while helping the relative move. The grenade was apparently being used, along with a couple of bullets, as a paperweight, said Langley RCMP Cpl. Holly Marks. Mounties called in the Navy Bomb Disposal team to check out the suspicious grenade. They found that it did have a live fuse and detonator, and could pot-
entially explode. The grenade was taped up to make sure it couldn’t go off, and it was hauled away for safe disposal. The family wasn’t able to say exactly where the grenade and ammunition came from. Marks reminds people to always treat ammunition or explosives as if they are live and possibly dangerous. With explosives, don’t attempt to move them, but simply call local police.