There are sales to be made in the troubled Metro Vancouver condo market, but developers must design homes the right size, for the right price, in the right location, says one developer having apparent success in a Port Coquitlam pre-sale. 

Northstar Development has reached about 50 per cent sales on Livy, a six-storey, 102-unit project in downtown Port Coquitlam at 2245 McAllister Ave. Construction is under way with the team confident final sales will be achieved by the end of the construction process. Livy has homes ranging from studios to two-bedroom plus den. The building has 19,600 sq. ft. of retail space as well. 

To get here, the project had to change hands first, and then be redesigned. It was originally launched as The Met by Quarry Rock Developments. The project eventually fell into receivership proceedings and was purchased by Northstar in Jan. 2025.

Northstar had been consulting with the previous developer to help bring The Met to fruition, Northstar president Gord Wylie said in an interview. Simultaneously, Northstar was building and selling Porthaven, a 108-unit, six-storey, mixed-use condo project also in Port Coquitlam. 

Wylie said his team is committed to the city's downtown area and didn’t want to have a nearby project become a hole in the ground for the foreseeable future. "We recognized that it was an important site to the city of PoCo," Wylie said. "It was an opportunity for us to address the demand that we saw coming into our sales centre that was unsatiated — and that demand was (from many) first-time buyers" for smaller units.

Redesign increased number of units and boosted amenities

Wylie said the previous design wasn't going to work for the market. The Met had been designed for 80 units. Northstar narrowed the footprint and redesigned the building for 102 homes, making them smaller and forgoing parking stalls for 20 of the units. Cutting parking for those units allowed them to drop the prices for those homes by $40,000 to $50,000, Wylie said. 

"We added 22 units without actually reducing the overall building area," he said. "It allowed us to change the unit mix to appeal to more first-time buyers."

He added: "We made more efficient units, but high levels of amenity."

The building has 10,000 sq. ft. of amenity space including a rooftop social lounge, a bike workshop, yoga studio, outdoor hot and cold plunge pools, sauna, co-working spaces and a virtual golf room. "We're providing tower-level amenities in a wood-frame building,” Wylie said. 

Wylie said the city's community centre is located nearby so, they didn't need to focus on amenities that could be accessed there. "What we wanted to do is create something that was intimate and spoke to our buyers."

Port Coquitlam offers buyer affordability and convenience

Kierstin Brethour purchased a one-bedroom/1.5 bathroom unit Livy. She said her motivation was to remain in Port Coquitlam while moving up a bit in space and quality from her first condo, which she purchased two years ago in a building located a couple blocks from Livy. 

"I kind of lived all over the Lower Mainland," she said in an interview, listing New West, Burnaby, downtown Vancouver, and Kitsilano as stops during her 14 years living in the region.  

"That's kind of the reason I moved out to Port Coquitlam; just for more of an affordability aspect of things," she said, adding that she was familiar with Wylie and the development company, and that provided some comfort in a market and home-buying experience that can be "scary". 

"I work in downtown Vancouver five days a week. So, being close to transit, close to the highway, was a huge selling feature," Brethour said, adding the amenities package was also appealing.

Brethour has a car but typically takes the West Coast Express daily to her job downtown.

Brethour said she’s mildly aware that the regional condo market is going through a period with built-up inventory, which could present opportunities as a buyer’s market, but that wasn't the main trigger. Brethour’s new place at Livy will have a bit more space, including a den, to have guests. 

"I can have people over," she said. "My family's out of town, but when they come to visit me, they have to stay in a hotel. I see the opportunity to have them stay with me and have the space to stay with me. It definitely feels like a big step up." 

Most Livy buyers from the Tri-Cities area

Wylie said homes in Livy start at $299,000. 

Strong sales for smaller units at Porthaven previously led Northstar to realize there was demand for less expensive homes. Wylie said Porthaven is now roughly 80 per cent sold out. 

Wylie said that sales data shows that 60 per cent of their buyers at Livy are first-time buyers and 80 per cent come from the Tri-Cities area. 

He said a lot has been made about the standing inventory of condos in Metro Vancouver. (There are a reported 4,400 unsold units, totalling roughly $4.4 billion in value). 

"A lot of the inventory that's out there today, it was built years ago (with a) different mindset, different cost structures," Wylie said. "We were able to understand what was the ‘here and now’, and we could see a gap."