New Westminster, British Columbia
New Westminster has $31.8 billion of assessed value on 1,571 hectares of land, a city-owned electrical utility and dark fibre network, and a downtown whose two enclosed shopping centres sit either side of the line this section exists to draw: one is owned by a listed REIT that says so on its own property page, the other is run by a private investment manager that publishes the floor area and nothing about who owns it.
8 buildings · 7 with an owner established · 20 sources · 7 tier A · 1 tier B · prepared 2026-10-03
Can you find out who owns it?
British Columbia's land title register is run by the Land Title and Survey Authority and anyone may search it, but every search is a paid transaction: $11.06 for a search under section 377 of the Land Title Act on the LTSA Customer Fee Listing current at 1 April 2026. There is no bulk owner product and no price-paid file. What is unusual is the Land Owner Transparency Registry — filing obligations running from 30 November 2020 and public search live since 30 April 2021 — which names the individuals behind corporations, trusts and partnerships that own BC land; the same LTSA schedule prices a search of publicly accessible information under section 35 of the Land Owner Transparency Act at NIL. New Westminster is the only city in this batch with an institutional skyline, and the pattern is the one the register predicts: where the owner is a listed REIT or a named developer, the company publishes it; where the owner is a private investment vehicle, nothing is published and the manager's name is all you get. The city itself is an unusually large owner for its size, because it runs its own electrical utility and its own dark fibre network and holds the land under both. New Westminster is also where one of the province's three Land Title Offices sits.
Is ownership public?Public, but one paid search at a time
Cost of one title search$11.06 per title search (LTSA Customer Fee Listing, fees as at April 1, 2026). A search of publicly accessible information under section 35 of the Land Owner Transparency Act is priced NIL on the same schedule.
Bulk ownership dataNone published
Sale pricesAggregates only — no individual sales
Sites that forbid taking their data
- bcassessment.ca — “Any commercial use of these data in whole or in part, directly or indirectly, including the use of such data for business, residential address or telephone directory services or any solicitation service is specifically prohibited except with the prior written authority of the owner of the copyright.”
1
The marquee buildings
The towers that set the tone of the core, and who holds them. A price is the price a document states, on the date it states — not an estimate of what the building is worth now.
| Building | Use | Owner | Owner type | Last price paid |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shops at New West 800 Carnarvon Street, New Westminster V3M 0G3 207,100+ sq ft |
Retail | First Capital REIT First Capital REIT lists the centre among its own properties, giving the address and 207,100+ sf, and describes it as "connected to the New Westminster SkyTrain Station, a major transit hub with around 250,000 daily commuters", anchored by Safeway, Landmark Cinemas and Shoppers Drug Mart. First Capital's own About page describes the REIT as "owners, operators, and developers of grocery-anchored, open-air centres in Canada's most densely populated neighbourhoods". No acquisition price is published on either page, so none is recorded. |
REIT | —A |
| Royal City Centre 610 Sixth Street 371,523 sq ft gross leasable area |
Retail | Not established a paid title search would answer it Salthill Capital carries Royal City Centre in its portfolio with gross leasable area of 371,523 sq ft at 610–6th Street, describes it as "the only major retail development in uptown New Westminster", anchored by Walmart, Winners, Shoppers Drug Mart and Save on Foods, and gives a leasing contact at "Salthill Property Management Inc. Real Estate Brokerage" from a head office at 130 Bloor Street West, Toronto. A portfolio entry by an investment manager is not a statement of registered ownership, the page makes no ownership claim, and the brochure it links returns a 14-byte body. No owner is recorded. A title search at $11.06 would answer it. |
Not established | —A |
| Brewery District Nelson's Court and East Columbia Street, Sapperton 1.4M sq ft of buildable area across eight buildings |
Mixed use | Wesgroup Properties Wesgroup's own project pages state that the site, "previously home to the Labatt's Brewery", "offers 1.4 million square feet of buildable area within the masterplan's eight buildings, of which seven are completed", with "over 140,000 sq. ft. of retail space", "over 600,000 sq. ft. of office space" and "up to 80,000 sq. ft. of space for health services", directly across from Sapperton SkyTrain station and Royal Columbian Hospital. Wesgroup names itself the developer and the landlord of the completed rental buildings, The Westminster and The Nelson. No price is published for any phase. |
Developer | —A |
| Royal Columbian Hospital 330 East Columbia Street |
Institutional | Fraser Health Authority Fraser Health lists Royal Columbian Hospital at 330 East Columbia Street in its own service directory as a regional hospital it operates, and states "The new Jim Pattison Acute Care Tower at Royal Columbian Hospital is now open." The City of New Westminster states on its own projects page that "A three-phase $1.35 billion redevelopment is underway at Royal Columbian Hospital. This is the largest government-funded healthcare project in BC's history", running Phase 1 2016–2020, Phase 2 2020–2024 and Phase 3 2023–2026. Fraser Health publishes it as its own facility; title was not searched, so tier B. |
Government | —B |
| Anvil Centre 777 Columbia Street a civic facility beneath a nine-storey office tower |
Civic | City of New Westminster The City's own release states that "Anvil Centre and the Anvil Centre Office Tower have officially received LEED Gold Certification", that Anvil Centre "opened in 2014", and quotes the Mayor saying "our community can be proud to call Anvil their own". The centre at 777 Columbia Street holds conference spaces including a theatre, the New Media Gallery, the New Westminster Museum and Archives and the Lacrosse Hall of Fame. The City's 2025 financial statements list "managing the Anvil Centre and its range of heritage, arts, cultural, and conference services" among the responsibilities of its Community Services segment. The office tower above it is a separate question — see unverified. |
Government | —A |
| Massey Theatre and Complex 735 Eighth Avenue more than 35,000 sq ft leased; 1,260-seat theatre |
Civic | City of New Westminster The City and New Westminster Schools (School District No. 40) announced on 27 September 2021 "an agreement that will facilitate the sale of the Massey Theatre and a surrounding parcel of land, transferring ownership from the District to the City", for one dollar. On 1 November 2021 the City announced it "recently took ownership" and had finalised a 25-year lease to the Massey Theatre Society over "more than 35,000 square foot leased space" including the 1,260-seat theatre. The City's 2025 reserves carry a Facility Replacement – Massey Theatre reserve of $5,405,038, down from $10,990,434. |
Government | CAD $1 2021-09 The City's own release states the purchase price: "For the cost of one dollar, the City of New Westminster will purchase the Massey Theatre and an adjacent section of land". A |
| Westminster Pier Park Quayside, New Westminster waterfront |
Civic | City of New Westminster The City's 2025 financial statements carry two debenture issues under "Westminster Pier Park Development Bylaw 7377" — $533,458 at 0.61% and $699,650 at 0.75% outstanding at 31 December 2025 — plus $253,681 of Municipal Finance Authority debt reserve deposits against Bylaw 7377. A municipality servicing development debt it raised under its own named bylaw against a named park is the owner of it. |
Government | —A |
| New Westminster Substation New Westminster |
Industrial | BC Hydro and Power Authority Note 18 of the City's 2025 financial statements states: "In January 2012, the City entered into an operating agreement with BC Hydro for the New Westminster Substation. The agreement commits the City to reimburse BC Hydro for all costs relating to operating, maintaining and upgrading the substation." The initial term ran to 31 March 2015 with five-year renewals; on 31 March 2025 it was automatically extended to 31 March 2030. The City distributes the electricity and carries $160,079,260 of electrical distribution system at cost; BC Hydro holds the substation. |
Government | —A |
2
The core land
The most valuable ground in the city, and what the public record says about it.
New Westminster's roll is $31.8bn, a quarter of which is not housing — $3.79bn of business and other, $514M of light industry and $94M of major industry, the only major industry base in this batch of five. The city's own balance sheet is correspondingly large for its population: $951.5M of tangible capital assets, $219.7M of land at cost, $271.6M of reserves and an accumulated surplus of $1.10bn, including a municipal electrical utility carrying $160.1M of distribution system at cost. Figures are the 2026 provincial assessment roll, the City's audited 2025 financial statements and the province's 2025 property transfer tax file.
City total assessed value$31.84B
$31,844,367,014 for general municipal purposes on the 2026 roll: residential $27,389,300,143, business and other $3,790,618,146, light industry $514,240,000, major industry $93,879,000, recreation and non-profit $40,468,000, utilities $15,848,831, farm $12,876 and supportive housing $18. BC Ministry of Municipal Affairs, Local Government Statistics Schedule 701 — Assessed Values for the year 2026.
City's own land, at cost$219,732,123
Note 10, Tangible Capital Assets, in the City's audited 2025 financial statements: land cost rose from $215,358,551 to $219,732,123 on additions of $4,373,572 and no disposals. Land is not amortised. Total tangible capital assets are $1,395,611,057 of cost and $951,546,636 of net book value at 31 December 2025, including $49,970,366 of assets under construction and $160,079,260 of electrical distribution system at cost.
Accumulated surplus and reserves$1.10B, of which $271.6M reserves
Accumulated surplus of $1,101,946,390 at 31 December 2025. Reserves of $271,618,722 include Climate Action $49,150,652, Electrical Fund Provisions $44,679,378, Sewer Fund Provisions $43,567,998, Water Fund Provisions $26,944,943, Parks Reserve $23,064,840, Growing Communities Grant $13,864,812, Equipment Replacement $9,264,451, Facility Maintenance $8,644,018 and Facility Replacement – Massey Theatre $5,405,038. Statutory reserves include Construction of Municipal Works $7,963,665, Tax Sale Land $2,034,620, Parking Cash in Lieu $1,138,240 and Park Land Acquisition $362,215.
Whole-city turnover, 20251,385 sales, $1.196B
1,385 market transactions in the City of New Westminster across 2025 — 1,370 residential, 15 commercial — with total fair market value of $1,196,330,801 and $15,690,312 of property transfer tax paid. BC Ministry of Finance property transfer tax data 2025, municipal monthly file; the corporate-transaction count is suppressed as "nr" in 9 of the 12 months. Fifteen commercial transfers in a year is what a tightly held commercial core looks like.
Contractual rights from City property$40,562,029 over five years and thereafter
Note 19 of the City's 2025 financial statements: contracts "for the use of City assets through property, fibre optic network and advertising space agreements" and for services and capital, expected to yield $19,778,985 in 2026, $8,771,397 in 2027, $4,212,024 in 2028, $2,252,122 in 2029, $1,527,912 in 2030 and $4,019,589 thereafter.
City area, and how much of it is the Fraser River1,850 ha (1,571 ha land)
Schedule 201 — General Statistics for 2024 gives New Westminster 1,571 ha of land and 279 ha of water, total 1,850 ha; the province's legal municipal boundary layer independently returns 1,850.6 ha. The water is the Fraser River, whose bed is provincial Crown land. 2021 Census population 78,916; BC Stats estimate 88,945 — the largest city in this batch and the densest.
Titled parcels in the city29,557
ParcelMap BC's public parcel-fabric WFS, filtered to MUNICIPALITY = 'New Westminster, The Corporation of the City of', reports totalFeatures of 29,557. The service pages results 1,000 at a time and will not sort without an explicit sortBy; paging all thirty requests did not complete within this research, so the count is published and no ownership split by OWNER_TYPE is. For comparison, the same query returns 2,550 parcels for the City of Duncan, of which 89.4% carry OWNER_TYPE 'Private'.
3
Who owns the town
At this scale the significant owner is rarely a trust or a fund: it is one or two local holding companies, a family in its second or third generation, and often the land around the town rather than the buildings in it.
The honest answer for New Westminster is narrower than for the other four cities in this batch, because the province's land-designation layer does not work in a dense urban municipality: probed at known addresses it returned its residual class for the hospital, for Queen's Park, for Queensborough, for the waterfront park and for the bed of the Fraser River. No Crown share is claimed here. What can be said is that the City is a very large owner for its size, that two of the three big commercial assets have named owners and one does not, and that 279 of the city's 1,850 hectares are the Fraser River, whose bed is provincial Crown land.
| Name | Type | Holdings |
|---|---|---|
| City of New Westminster Land at cost rose $4,373,572 in 2025 to $219,732,123, with no disposals. The City holds the Anvil Centre, the Massey Theatre complex (bought from the school district for $1 in 2021 and leased back out for 25 years), Westminster Pier Park, Queen's Park, the public library, the works yards, the cemetery and the land under a municipal electrical distribution system and a dark fibre network. Total tangible capital assets are $951,546,636 net book value within an accumulated surplus of $1,101,946,390. |
Government | $219,732,123 of land at cost; $951,546,636 of tangible capital assetsA |
| Fraser Health Authority Fraser Health publishes Royal Columbian Hospital at 330 East Columbia Street as its own regional hospital. The City states the redevelopment is "a three-phase $1.35 billion" project and "the largest government-funded healthcare project in BC's history", running 2016 to 2026. Title was not searched. |
Government | Royal Columbian Hospital, in a $1.35bn three-phase redevelopmentB |
| Wesgroup Properties The former Labatt's brewery site, redeveloped as Brewery District across from Sapperton SkyTrain station, with seven of eight buildings complete. Wesgroup's own pages state the scale and name it as the developer and the landlord of the rental buildings. |
Family / private | a 1.4M sq ft masterplan site in SappertonA |
| First Capital REIT The only downtown commercial owner stated by its own owner on its own property page. |
REIT | 207,100+ sq ft at 800 Carnarvon StreetA |
| BC Hydro and Power Authority Held by BC Hydro under a 2012 operating agreement with the City, automatically extended on 31 March 2025 to 31 March 2030, under which the City reimburses BC Hydro for all costs of operating, maintaining and upgrading it. The City distributes the power; the Crown corporation holds the substation. |
Government | the New Westminster SubstationA |
| Province of British Columbia (provincial Crown) Schedule 201 gives New Westminster 279 ha of water against 1,571 ha of land. That water is the Fraser River, whose bed is provincial Crown land. No further Crown share is claimed, because the layer that would have produced one does not work here — see automationBlocked. |
Government | 279 ha of water inside the city boundaryB |
4
Where property meets office
Recorded only where a public record states it — a disclosure registry, council minutes, a land-use decision. Stated as fact, with nothing inferred from it.
| Holder | Office | Holding |
|---|---|---|
| City of New Westminster and New Westminster Schools (School District No. 40) | City Council and the Board of Education, 2021 | The Massey Theatre and an adjacent parcel, transferred between two public bodies for one dollar Both bodies published the transaction. The City's release of 27 September 2021 states "For the cost of one dollar, the City of New Westminster will purchase the Massey Theatre and an adjacent section of land", quotes the Mayor and the Board Chair, and records that the Board would pass the enabling bylaw over two meetings. The City's release of 1 November 2021 records the completed transfer and the 25-year lease back to the Massey Theatre Society. A one-dollar transfer between two public bodies is normal and was published as such; nothing here suggests any private interest. A |
| City of New Westminster | City Council, as owner of a municipal electrical utility | The electrical distribution system, $160,079,260 at cost, and a dark fibre optic utility The City's 2025 financial statements describe the Electrical Utility as responsible for "distributing electricity to the city's residents and businesses, as well as designing and maintaining city-owned electrical distribution infrastructure", and the Dark Fibre Optic Utility as providing "an open-access communications infrastructure". New Westminster is one of a small number of BC municipalities that distributes its own electricity, and it holds a $44,679,378 Electrical Fund Provisions reserve. This is a statement of published fact about a public asset. A |
5
Who builds the houses
New-home building in this market: the volume, and the firms behind it. Ownership of a builder matters as much as its volume — a private-equity platform and a family firm behave differently.
New Westminster is a tower market inside Metro Vancouver and 1,370 of its 1,385 transfers in 2025 were residential. No Canadian league table counts builders by city, and the City does not publish a developer list, so the builders below are the ones whose own published material states what they built here and how much of it. Private-equity-backed platforms and family developers behave differently and the ownership type is marked.
| Name | Type | Floor area / units |
|---|---|---|
| Wesgroup Properties Wesgroup's own project pages for Brewery District state the masterplan's scale — 1.4 million sq ft of buildable area, over 600,000 sq ft of office, over 140,000 sq ft of retail and up to 80,000 sq ft of health services, with seven of eight buildings complete — and name it as the developer and the landlord of the completed rental buildings The Westminster and The Nelson. The Keary, a final residential phase, is marked sold out on its own site. Wesgroup is a privately held Vancouver developer; no unit total for New Westminster is published in a filing. |
Family / private | 1.4M sq ft of buildable area, eight buildings, seven completedA |
| City of New Westminster The City's role in new housing shows up on its own balance sheet rather than as construction: at 31 December 2025 it held $2,256,776 in an Affordable Housing reserve, $8,267,974 in Community Amenity, $8,140,500 in Community Development, $485,003 in General Amenity, $1,138,240 in Parking Cash in Lieu and $362,215 in Park Land Acquisition — the amenity contributions a city collects from the developments it approves. |
Government | $2,256,776 Affordable Housing reserve; $8,267,974 Community Amenity reserveA |
6
Commercial landlords
The commercial side, counted separately from housing: who holds the office, retail and industrial floor area.
The business-and-other class is $3.79bn, about 12% of the roll, and only fifteen commercial properties changed hands in 2025. Downtown has two enclosed centres of comparable size and opposite transparency; Sapperton has a 1.4M sq ft master-planned district with a named developer; and the City itself is a substantial commercial landlord through the Anvil Centre, its fibre network and its property agreements.
| Name | Type | Floor area |
|---|---|---|
| First Capital REIT The REIT lists Shops at New West among its own properties with the address and area, and describes itself as an owner, operator and developer of grocery-anchored open-air centres. It is the only commercial owner in downtown New Westminster that any document opened here states outright. |
REIT | 207,100+ sq ft at Shops at New WestA |
| Wesgroup Properties From the developer's own project pages. The district also holds up to 80,000 sq ft of space for health services, across from Royal Columbian Hospital. |
Developer | over 600,000 sq ft of office and over 140,000 sq ft of retail at Brewery DistrictA |
| Royal City Centre — owner not established Salthill Capital publishes the area, the address, the anchors and a leasing contact at Salthill Property Management Inc., and makes no ownership statement; the linked brochure returns an empty body. The single largest enclosed retail property in the city and its ownership is not public. |
Not established | 371,523 sq ft gross leasable areaA |
| City of New Westminster Beyond the Anvil Centre, the Massey Theatre complex, Westminster Pier Park and the public library, the City owns and operates the electrical distribution system ($160,079,260 at cost) and a dark fibre optic utility providing "an open-access communications infrastructure", and earns $40,562,029 of contracted revenue over five years and thereafter from property, fibre and advertising agreements. It also holds a statutory Tax Sale Land reserve of $2,034,620. |
Government | $219,732,123 of land at cost; $308,207,997 of buildings at costA |
?
Looked for and not found
Claims this page would have made if a source could be opened. They are left out rather than guessed.
- Who owns the Anvil Centre Office Tower, the nine-storey office building above the City's civic facility at 777 Columbia Street. The City's own 2017 release names it alongside Anvil Centre in the LEED certification but says nothing about ownership, and the City's 2025 financial statements name only "the Anvil Centre and its range of heritage, arts, cultural, and conference services" among its responsibilities. Search results state the tower was sold to an investment firm in 2014; no page we opened says so, so no owner is recorded.
- Who owns Royal City Centre, 371,523 sq ft at 610 Sixth Street. Salthill Capital carries it in its portfolio and manages it; the page makes no ownership claim and the brochure it links returns a 14-byte body.
- Who owns Douglas College's New Westminster campus at 700 Royal Avenue, the Quay / River Market at 810 Quayside Drive, Queensborough Landing, and the industrial land that carries New Westminster's $93.9M major-industry and $514.2M light-industry assessment. No document opened names an owner for any of them.
- Whether Fraser Health Authority holds registered title to Royal Columbian Hospital or whether it is held by another provincial body. Fraser Health publishes it as its own facility and the City attributes the redevelopment to it; title was not searched.
- Any Crown or federal share of New Westminster's land. The province's Land Designations for Forest Management layer, which produced that figure for the other four cities in this batch, returns its residual class 'Forest Management Unit' for Royal Columbian Hospital, Queen's Park, Queensborough, Westminster Pier Park and the Fraser River, so 39.8% of the city falls into a class that means nothing here. The figure is deliberately not published.
- A parcel-count ownership split from ParcelMap BC. The service reports 29,557 parcels for New Westminster but serves only 1,000 per request; the thirty sequential requests did not complete here, so only the total is published.
- No open dataset names the owner of any BC parcel. ParcelMap BC's public extract is geometry, PID and an ownership class; the fully attributed variant is licensed to government only; BC Assessment's full roll is "named users" only and its site forbids commercial use of the values.
- BC publishes no price-paid file. For New Westminster the corporate-transaction count is suppressed in 9 of the 12 months of 2025, and only fifteen commercial transfers were recorded in the whole year.
- LOTR covers only land held through corporations, trusts and partnerships. Land held directly by an individual is out of scope.
§
Sources
- Fees — LTSA Customer Fee Listing as at April 1, 2026 — Land Title and Survey Authority of British Columbia · openA
- About the Land Owner Transparency Registry — Land Title and Survey Authority of British Columbia · openA
- BC Assessment homepage, terms of use and copyright notice — BC Assessment · openA
- Local Government Statistics — Schedule 701, Assessed Values for the year 2026 — BC Ministry of Municipal Affairs · openA
- Local Government Statistics — Schedule 201, General Statistics for 2024 — BC Ministry of Municipal Affairs · openA
- Property Transfer Tax Data 2025 — municipal monthly file — BC Ministry of Finance / BC Data Catalogue · openA
- Land Designations for Forest Management (ANA_LDFM_LND_DESIG_FOR_MGMT_SP) — BC Ministry of Forests / BC Data Catalogue · openA
- Municipalities — Legally Defined Administrative Areas of BC (ABMS_MUNICIPALITIES_SP), WFS — GeoBC / BC Data Catalogue · openA
- 2025 Consolidated Financial Statements — Corporation of the City of New Westminster — City of New Westminster · openA
- Shops at New West — property page — First Capital REIT · openA
- About First Capital — First Capital REIT · openA
- Brewery District — The Nelson, and Brewery District community page — Wesgroup Properties · openA
- Royal City Centre — portfolio page — Salthill Capital · openA
- The City of New Westminster's Anvil Centre and Office Tower receive LEED Gold Certification — City of New Westminster · openA
- City and School District: Working together to support the arts in New Westminster through Massey Theatre transfer — City of New Westminster · openA
- City of New Westminster finalizes lease agreement with Massey Theatre Society (MTS) — City of New Westminster · openA
- RCH Redevelopment — Projects on the Go — City of New Westminster · openA
- Royal Columbian Hospital — Service Directory location — Fraser Health Authority · openA
- BC Physical Address Geocoder — GeoBC / Province of British Columbia · openA
- ParcelMap BC Parcel Fabric (PMBC_PARCEL_FABRIC_POLY_SVW), WFS, MUNICIPALITY = 'New Westminster, The Corporation of the City of' — Land Title and Survey Authority of BC / BC Data Catalogue · openA