A landmark agreement between Canada’s second-largest pension fund and a tiny aboriginal band not only topped the list of the biggest real estate deals for 2014 in B.C. but is also the biggest non-resource agreement ever inked by a First Nation in British Columbia.
And it did not involve a land sale.
“I think it is the biggest single deal for any First Nations in the province, certainly in the Lower Mainland,” said Chris Hartman, CEO of the Tsawwassen First Nation (TFN) Economic Development Corp.
In January 2014, the 450-member TFN leased 108 acres of its land for 99 years to Ivanhoé Cambridge, the real estate arm of giant Quebec pension fund Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec.
The former farmland is part of a 2009 treaty agreement with the province that removed 511.5 acres from the Agricultural Land Reserve and transferred it to the TFN.
Ivanhoé Cambridge is spending $600 million to build the biggest enclosed shopping mall under construction in Canada, along with a 76-acre parking lot for 6,000 cars.
“This is one of the largest retail projects in British Columbia history,” said Jeff Brown, director of development for Ivanhoé Cambridge, of the sprawling site near the Tsawwassen ferry terminal in South Delta.
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