Not All Commercial Assessments Are Up This Year

Some Commercial Property Assessments are Down in 2019

Over the past several months, the news has been filled with stories about sky-rocketing assessments of commercial properties throughout the Lower Mainland, and most of BC and Alberta. Property assessments are up, taxes are up and growing competition from both on-line and new competitive businesses entering the Kelowna market are adding pressures to the viability of some existing businesses.

However, in Kelowna some of the most valuable commercial properties seem to be bucking the trend when it comes to property assessment. A quick review of 2018 & 2019 property assessments found a majority of larger multi tenanted retail properties in Kelowna are down by between 4% – 7%.

Orchard Park Mall, Kelowna’s highest assessed commercial property at $296,202,000 in 2019 is down from the 2018 assessed value of $307,215,000. This equates to a 3.6% reduction in value by BC Assessment. The assessed value of Orchard Plaza is down in 2019 to $70,653,000 or a 4.0% reduction. Other large retail properties had even larger reductions. Mission Park Shopping Centre ($36,739,000), Lakeshore Centre – Save-On-Foods ($19,843,000), Guisachan Village ($11,985,000) and Plaza 33 ($20,110,000) all lead the way with reductions of 7.7% in their assessed values in 2019.

The map included with this post shows the retail properties with reductions in their 2019 property assessments.

Some Shuffling of Assessed Values As Well in 2019

Another trend that became apparent is the shuffling of assessed values. There were at least 5 high profile retail properties whose assessed building value went down by the same amount that the assessed land value went up, as a result the overall assessed value of the properties did not change from last year. Those properties included Costco, Walmart, Home Depot, Canadian Tire and Rona.