The major west coast port city of Vancouver, is a busy, bustling, high-rise, urban and commercial centre. But the centre of that centre is soon to be without any place for motorists to fill their gas tanks.
The last station on “the peninsula” is now listed on an international real estate site. Indeed several stations in Vancouver have disappeared recently. It’s part of a growing trend across North America, as stations are slowly closing year after year.
The main reason is that the land has become vastly more valuable than the gas station operation. Indeed in Vancouver’s case where there is a zoning height of 91 metres (300ft) for the area, a giant condo or other multistory office building represents an astronomically greater profit margin than a low-rise gasoline sales operation.
This last downtown-peninsula station had it’s land alone valued at $36 million last year by B.C. Assessment.
If, and undoubtedly when, a sale takes place, Vancouver will become the first major Canadian city without a gas station in its downtown core.
But gas stations across Canada (and the US) are slowly disappearing.
In 2015 there were 11.916 retail operations across Canada. This compares to 12.710 in 2010, and 20,000 in 1989.
As mentioned, the value of the property in city centres makes the gas station a target for sale and redevelopment.
However other factors are also at play. These include improvements in fuel efficiency meaning a very slow increase in net fuel sales, approximately 40 million litres in 2011, and 42 million in 2015, and a slow increase in electric car use. The latter is expected to increase as technology creates longer ranges and faster recharging times for “EV’s”.
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