Never heard of Sapperton? You might want to check it out before every other real estate-minded West Ender plants their Pride flags there.
Sapperton is a historical neighborhood in New Westminster that’s experiencing a major makeover. Sloping above the Fraser River and focused around the thoroughfares of Brunette Avenue and Columbia Street, Sapperton offers views of the working river with tug boats and log booms. It’s gritty, busy, beautiful and brimming with potential.
In the centre of Sapperton, on the former site of the Labatt’s Brewery, a new master-planned community called Brewery District already bustles with a retail hub featuring Brown’s Social House, Starbucks, Save-On-Foods, Move yoga studio and other small businesses. Royal Columbian Hospital is right there — with an anticipated huge injection of provincial funding expected to bring a new influx of medical research and experts into the hood. Translink’s headquarters is here too, providing another stable economic base for the emerging neighbourhood. And it’s just steps from the Sapperton Skytrain station – so you’re 30 minutes to work downtown or a half-hour from home on a staggery Saturday night.
Once a base for the Royal Engineers (called “Sappers”), Sapperton has been a quiet community with rows of single-family homes. Things are about to get a whole lot brighter and a lot more vertical.
Emerging in the heart of Brewery District, The Sapperton is a new 15-storey, 116-home condo development that offers the best value anywhere on transit. New West is half the price of Vancouver real estate – yet you can get from Sapperton to downtown faster than you can get into some downtown bars on a Friday night.
Get your money’s worth. Sapperton is Vancouver’s Brooklyn. There’s innovation and a new style, yet the neighbourhood’s historical industrial vibe isn’t going anywhere. This is no generic, cookie-cutter suburb. It’s funky, eclectic and a joy to discover.
The Sapperton is a rare opportunity to own an outstanding condo in a neighbourhood your friends haven’t discovered – and where you’ll discover new friends in an urban yet small-town atmosphere. Enjoy life here as your investment grows along with the community.
While Sapperton has almost anything you’d want, it’s also just a healthy walk or one or two train stops to everything the revitalized downtown New West offers, including studios and galleries, the new civic centre, the walkway that’s invigorating the waterfront and the River Market, which offers great outdoor patios, restaurants and shops. In the other direction, Lougheed Mall is two stops away.
New West is rich in history, remarkable vintage buildings, character homes and parks. It’s a strong community, economically and socially. There is an authenticity in Sapperton that money can’t buy. (Well, at Vancouver-area price points anyway.) It’s a walk-to-everything community – but right on the SkyTrain route. This is one of the few suburban homes you can enjoy without a car. But if you’ve got a car, there are no toll bridges, which is more than you can say for less affordable places further away.
As Vancouver’s civic affairs maven Frances Bula writes: “New West is attractive because it’s one of the few areas outside downtown Vancouver with a sense of history. But New West is closer and not so suburban feeling as North Van. I see it possibly being more like Georgetown in Seattle or Williamsburg in New York.”
Young, hip people are filling the indie cafes and antique stores of New West. Yoga and artists’ studios are raising the cool quotient. Innovative chefs that can’t bother fighting the rents on Robson are headed this way. The Tyee gets the magic energy that’s taking over New West.
Wesgroup’s Sapperton homes are now selling. Don’t kick yourself for missing one of the last real estate bargains in a place you’d actually love to live. Get moving. Make your home here.
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