Starting today condo and recreational-property buyers can go onestop shopping in downtown Vancouver. Think of it like an “auto-mall” for condos.
   The City and Country Condo Centre, at 400 Robson, is designed to host seven projects, with the intention of refreshing the centre as one projects sells out and another begins, says condo centre founder Cliff Bowman.
   “If it’s a static exhibit people will say I’ve been there and I’ve seen that. By changing some, every two to three months on average, it will keep it refreshed.”
   Bowman has no idea how many consumers will visit the centre, but he points out 60,000 people live within a 20-minute walk and a nearby office population is also around 50,000.
   “They could come over on their lunch hour and buy a new home,” he said. “It’s one large open house.”
   Bowman believes this is the first time a one-stop condo shopping-centre has been developed in Canada, and certainly a first for B.C.
   Bowman, as president of the Vancouver-based Builders International Real Estate Marketing Corp. (bireM), said his marketing company deals with both urban and recreational properties as well as projects from the U.S. — which he hopes to see eventually showcased in the centre.
   He said developers, particularly those with out-of-town projects, can get the word out about their projects in Vancouver and save the cost of setting up their own presentation centres.
   He noted a centre can cost up to $300,000 and have a life span of only a few months when the project sells out.
   Renting a bay at the condo centre costs $15,000 for three months.
   Bowman said all of the bays have enough room to showcase three big scale project models, wall space to hang floor plans, photographs, or large screen video presentations. They even have a hook-up to allow kitchen and bath display vignettes to be built at the back of each bay.
   Three spaces are currently being rented to one developer, who has constructed a mock-up of the interior of a 1,240 square foot condo planned for Saltspring Island.
   Jim Rogers, president of Channel Ridge Properties, which is developing the Highbridge project, said he believes consumers will be more likely to visit the mall knowing there are four or five other interesting projects.
   “This allows buyers to experience our new development on Salt Spring Island without the need to leave Vancouver,” he said.
   The Highbridge project, with condos ranging from $390,000 to $1 million, will be ready for occupancy by mid-2006.
   The project is so new the roads and services have not yet been built so building a presentation centre at the site is impossible at the moment.
   Bill Wright, of Cape Developments, is also featuring an out-of-town condo project at the condo centre. The 157 units project in Nanaimo’s harbour front will be ready for occupancy in the spring of 2006. “We have a display centre in Nanaimo but we felt the condo centre can handle inquiries in the Lower Mainland,” he said.
   The centre will be open seven days a week from noon to 7 p.m.
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IAN LINDSAY/VANCOUVER SUN Cliff Bowman, president of Builders International Real Estate Marketing Corp. at the firm’s Robson Street showroom. IAN LINDSAY/VANCOUVER SUN The view from the kitchen of a condo in the Highlands project where potential buyers of condos and recreational property can check and compare new properties currently available. IAN LINDSAY/VANCOUVER SUN The Highlands project model suite living and kitchen area — one of the displays at the Robson Street showroom where homebuyers can see models of many different condo projects.