Victoria, British Columbia
Victoria's open assessment roll prices every parcel in the city and names nobody: the most valuable is a hospital at $522.5 million and the most heavily taxed is a shopping centre whose owner is a Chinese-Canadian family company that bought it from a Quebec pension fund in 2021 — a fact no public register in British Columbia will tell you, because title there costs $11.06 a search.
10 buildings · 8 with an owner established · 23 sources · 7 tier A · 3 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 anybody may search it, but each search is a priced transaction: $11.06 for "a search under section 377 or a copy of the search results, or both" on the LTSA Customer Fee Listing as at April 1, 2026, and $16.76 for a certified State of Title Certificate. There is no bulk owner product at any price and no price-paid file, so provincial transaction data is published as counts and values by municipality rather than sale by sale. What BC does have, and almost nowhere else in the Americas does, is the Land Owner Transparency Registry: reporting bodies have had to file since 30 November 2020, the public search has been live since 30 April 2021, and the same LTSA schedule prices a "Search of publicly accessible information under section 35" at NIL — it is designed to name the individuals behind the corporations, trusts and partnerships that hold BC land. In Victoria the constraint is publication, not the register: the City republishes BC Assessment's land and improvement values for all 33,698 taxable parcels under its own Open Government Licence, which permits commercial reuse, and that roll carries folio, PID, legal type, exemption and tax levy — and not one owner name.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Royal Jubilee Hospital 1952 Bay Street — PID 023-646-438, folio 6398015 |
Institutional | Not established a paid title search would answer it The single most valuable parcel on the City of Victoria's 2026 assessment roll: $52,209,000 of land plus $470,252,000 of improvements, $522,461,000 of which is exempt — the whole of it — and a tax levy of zero. The roll names no owner, and Island Health's own site 404s on every Royal Jubilee URL tried, so the holding entity was not established here. A $11.06 LTSA title search would answer it. |
Not established | —A |
| Mayfair Shopping Centre 3147 Douglas Street — PID 030-026-008, folio 9684010 |
Retail | Central Walk The most heavily taxed parcel in Victoria: $131,304,000 land plus $100,983,000 improvements on the 2026 roll, a $4,620,268.38 levy. CHEK News, 7 June 2021: Ivanhoe Cambridge "confirmed it sold the business to Weihong Liu and her family business Central Walk on June 1 for an undisclosed amount" — the second BC mall Central Walk bought from that seller, after Woodgrove Centre in Nanaimo. No price is recorded because none was disclosed. The seller is the real estate arm of the Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec, under the La Caisse brand since June 2025. The news source itself names the buying entity and its principal. |
Family / private | —B |
| Hillside Centre 1580 Hillside Avenue — PID 027-698-793, folio 8600007 more than 590,000 sq ft |
Retail | BGO (BentallGreenOak) Prime Canadian Property Fund The Times Colonist reported in December 2013 that Bentall Kennedy had bought Hillside Centre from CPPIB for its Prime Canadian Property Fund, then holding over $3.5 billion for more than 120 institutional investors; the price was not released. The same article: "In 2010, Hillside was sold for $113.5 million to the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board by the Ontario Pension Plan." The mall's own contact page states "Hillside Centre is proudly managed by BentallGreenOak". Second on the roll by tax: $157,488,000 land plus $45,892,000 improvements, a $4,045,320.52 levy. Tier B: the acquisition source is thirteen years old. |
Institution | —B |
| Bay Centre 1150 Douglas Street — PID 015-073-050, folio 1039012 440,411 sq ft |
Retail | Leyad Leyad's own portfolio page lists "Bay Centre, Retail, Victoria, B.C., 440,411 SQ.FT." among its assets alongside Niagara's Pen Centre and Mega Centre Lebourgneuf; the mall's own footer reads "Property managed by Leyad." Leyad describes itself as Montreal-based and "For the past decade... dedicated to transforming properties and creating value in the Canadian real estate market." The mall covers a full downtown block with over 70 shops. On the 2026 roll this parcel carries $50,129,000 of land against only $4,972,000 of improvements and a $1,126,756.28 levy — the mall is split across more than one folio. |
Private company | —A |
| Fairmont Empress 721 Government Street, Victoria Harbour |
Hotel | Bosa Development Daily Hive, December 2017: the hotel "has been purchased by Nat Bosa, and his wife Flora, of Bosa Development" and "was acquired from Ivanhoe Cambridge, a subsidiary of Quebec pension fund Caisse de depot et placement"; terms were not disclosed, so no price is recorded. 477 guestrooms, built 1908, on the Inner Harbour. The Times Colonist confirmed the owner three years later: "Bosa Development, which bought the Empress Hotel three years ago, is adding Dockside Green in Vic West to its portfolio." Fairmont operates it and does not own it. No parcel at 721 Government Street appears in the City's 2026 roll extract. |
Family / private | —B |
| Uptown 3440 Saanich Road (Saanich, in Greater Victoria) 865,000 sq ft site; 597,158 sq ft of commercial including 269,532 sq ft of office |
Mixed use | SHAPE Properties Listed on SHAPE's own portfolio page as one of its "Retail Destinations", with a stated 865,000 SF site, 597,158 SF of commercial of which 269,532 SF is office, 90+ retailers and a 312,387 surrounding trade-area population. SHAPE describes itself as "the real estate investment, development and management company behind Canada's most significant centres of gravity." The site is in the District of Saanich, so it is outside the City of Victoria roll used elsewhere on this page. |
Developer | —A |
| Capital Park 525 Superior Street — PID 029-737-478, folio 2142028; six acres bounded by Superior, Menzies and Michigan Streets, James Bay 127,000 sq ft and 120,000 sq ft office buildings, plus 113 homes |
Mixed use | Concert Properties and Jawl Properties joint venture; shares not stated A $250-million multi-phase project behind the Legislature. Concert's own site carries the Times Colonist report: the first office complex of 127,000 sq ft is "finished and filled with provincial staff", a second of 120,000 sq ft was 40% pre-leased to the province, and 113 homes were under construction in 2018. Concert Properties is owned by pension funds and institutional investors; Jawl Properties is a Victoria family firm whose own website could not be reached. On the 2026 roll this parcel carries $12,983,000 land plus $47,492,000 improvements and a $1,202,838.36 levy. |
Pension fund | CAD $34M 2014 "Vancouver-based Concert and Jawl Properties of Victoria bought the site, bordered by Superior, Menzies and Michigan streets, in 2014 for $34 million when the province was selling land to balance its books." A |
| Blueprint Residences 15-23 Erskine Lane, View Royal (Greater Victoria) over 218,000 sq ft |
Residential | BGO Core strategy with The Equitable Life Insurance Company of Canada BGO's own press release of 27 November 2025: a newly constructed four-building, 336-unit purpose-built rental community adjacent to Victoria General Hospital, acquired by "BGO's flagship Core strategy... in partnership with its valued partner and separately managed account client, The Equitable Life Insurance Company of Canada." No price is stated. The release names WestUrban Developments Ltd. as the developer. The site is in View Royal, outside the City of Victoria roll. |
Institution | —A |
| 1515 Douglas Street 1515 Douglas Street — PID 029-049-369, folio 1019009 |
Office | Not established a paid title search would answer it The most valuable privately held building in the city on the 2026 roll after the two malls: $22,637,000 of land under $122,533,000 of improvements, assessed as Business/Other and levied $2,968,073.17. The roll is published and the owner is not; no filing, newsroom or building site opened here states who holds it. This is the ordinary case in British Columbia, not an exception. |
Not established | —A |
| Beacon Hill Park 100 Cook Street — PID 010-503-587, folio 3181001 |
Civic | City of Victoria The most valuable piece of bare ground in Victoria: $180,492,000 of land value against zero improvements on the main folio row, fully exempt, zero levy. The City's own open "City Owned Parcels" layer gives OwnerName "CITY OF VICTORIA", OwnerType MUNICIPAL, inventory class ParksMP for this PID. A second large park parcel in the same layer (PID 013-026-020, 1301 Dallas Road, $72,580,000 of land, fully exempt) is recorded in that City layer under an owner name that is not the City's — an artefact of the 19th-century trust under which the park was granted, which this record notes but does not interpret. |
Government | —A |
2
The core land
The most valuable ground in the city, and what the public record says about it.
Victoria publishes the whole roll and the whole tax levy, parcel by parcel, under a licence that permits commercial reuse — and no owner names, because BC Assessment's values are licensed to the City without them. Figures are the 2026 taxation year of the City of Victoria Property Assessment Report and Property Tax Report, read directly from the City's ArcGIS feature services. Rows filtered to assess_type GENERAL to avoid double-counting the parallel SCHOOL levy.
Highest assessed parcel$522.5M
1952 Bay Street (Royal Jubilee Hospital), PID 023-646-438: $52,209,000 land + $470,252,000 improvements on the 2026 roll, $522,461,000 exempt, levy zero. City of Victoria Property Assessment Report 2026.
Highest tax levy on one parcel$4,620,268
3147 Douglas Street (Mayfair Shopping Centre), PID 030-026-008: $232,287,000 assessed, $4,620,268.38 levied. City of Victoria Property Tax Report 2026. Hillside Centre is second at $4,045,320.52.
City-wide assessed value$44.37B
33,698 GENERAL-class rows on the 2026 City of Victoria roll: $30,729,021,191 of land plus $13,636,922,805 of improvements — land is 69% of the total. Aggregated server-side from the City's own feature service.
Most valuable land with nothing on it$180.5M
100 Cook Street (Beacon Hill Park), PID 010-503-587: $180,492,000 of land value, zero improvements, fully exempt. City of Victoria Property Assessment Report 2026.
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.
Greater Victoria builds at a scale where single projects move the annual number: the Victoria census metropolitan area started 4,859 homes in 2025, of which 3,951 were apartment and other unit types, and 2,099 in the eight months to August 2026 — against 8,565 units still under construction at August 2026, which is four years of starts at the 2026 rate. Canada publishes no builder league table and BC has no equivalent of Ontario's regulator counts, so every figure below is either a project count a named source states or an explicit absence. Note what the market actually looks like: the builders are private and local, and the owners of what they build are increasingly not.
| Name | Type | Units, as a named source states them |
|---|---|---|
| WestUrban Developments Ltd. Named as the developer of Blueprint Residences in BGO's own acquisition release of 27 November 2025 — four buildings, 336 purpose-built rental units, over 218,000 sq ft, sold on completion to an institutional owner. WestUrban's own site states it was "founded in 2017" with a team of "combined 35+ years of experience" and that it is "growing rapidly across Western Canada"; it publishes no cumulative unit count. |
Private company | 336 rental units at Blueprint ResidencesA |
| Concert Properties Concert's own site carries the Times Colonist report of construction starting on Capital Park Residences: "A total of 113 homes are expected to be finished in late 2020 or early 2021", in five- and four-storey buildings plus seven townhouses, priced $499,900 to $1.09 million. Concert is the one large BC builder owned by pension funds rather than a family. |
Pension fund | 113 homes at Capital Park ResidencesA |
| Bosa Development The owner of the Fairmont Empress is also a Victoria housebuilder: the Times Colonist reported on 10 October 2017 that "Bosa Development, which bought the Empress Hotel three years ago, is adding Dockside Green in Vic West to its portfolio as it plans to build out the mixed-use property", buying from Vancity's Dockside Green Limited. No unit figure for its Victoria output was found on an opened page. |
Family / private | no unit count publishedA |
| Abstract Developments Its own About page: "Founded in 1999, Abstract's roots began in the design and construction of high-end custom homes in Victoria", now "dedicated to developing multi-family communities" with "a reputation over 25 years in the making". The page names current projects (Greyson, Central Block) but publishes no cumulative home count. |
Private company | no unit count publishedA |
| Townline Its own home page: "DEVELOPING, BUILDING, AND INVESTING IN BC SINCE 1980", founded by Rick Ilich and now "over 40 years later" still describing itself by the same ethos, with new homes, rental homes and commercial divisions. No cumulative unit count appears on the page opened. |
Family / private | no unit count publishedA |
| Aragon Properties Its own About Us page states "Over the last three decades, we've built large master-planned communities and boutique buildings" and that the company prioritises "selling finished homes". No unit or completion count appears on the page opened. |
Private company | no unit count publishedA |
6
Commercial landlords
The commercial side, counted separately from housing: who holds the office, retail and industrial floor area.
Victoria's four biggest retail assets have four different kinds of owner — an institutional fund, a Montreal private firm, a family company from outside the country and a Vancouver developer — and none of them is a listed REIT. The city's own largest private office landlord, Jawl Properties, publishes nothing: both its domains failed. Figures below are each owner's own disclosure, and where a figure is company-wide rather than Victoria-only the note says so.
| Name | Type | Victoria asset, or portfolio size as stated |
|---|---|---|
| BGO (BentallGreenOak) Hillside Centre was bought by Bentall Kennedy for its Prime Canadian Property Fund in December 2013 and is "proudly managed by BentallGreenOak" today per the mall's own contact page; BGO added Blueprint Residences in View Royal on 27 November 2025 through its flagship Core strategy with The Equitable Life Insurance Company of Canada. Hillside's 2026 assessed value is $203,380,000. |
Institution | 590,000+ sq ft (Hillside Centre) plus 336 rental units / 218,000 sq ftB |
| Central Walk Bought Mayfair from Ivanhoe Cambridge on 1 June 2021 for an undisclosed sum, per CHEK News, which also records that Central Walk had bought Woodgrove Centre in Nanaimo the previous September. Mayfair carries the largest single property tax levy in the City of Victoria, $4,620,268.38 for 2026. |
Family / private | $232.3M assessed (Mayfair Shopping Centre)A |
| Leyad Montreal-based; its own portfolio page lists Bay Centre at 440,411 sq ft alongside the Pen Centre in St. Catharines (1.1M sq ft), Ink48 in New York and Mega Centre Lebourgneuf in Quebec, and states "300+ Projects Completed" and "100% Value Add Investing". |
Private company | 440,411 sq ft (Bay Centre)A |
| SHAPE Properties SHAPE's own portfolio page gives Uptown an 865,000 SF site at 3440 Saanich Road with 597,158 SF of commercial, 269,532 SF of it office, and 90+ retailers. The same page lists The Amazing Brentwood and The City of Lougheed in Burnaby and RC at CF Richmond Centre. |
Developer | 597,158 sq ft of commercial, incl. 269,532 sq ft office (Uptown)A |
| Concert Properties (with Jawl Properties) Capital Park's two completed office buildings are 127,000 and 120,000 sq ft, held in joint venture with Jawl Properties of Victoria. Concert's own Commercial page states the company-wide portfolio: "Number of Assets 67", "Owned & Managed 12.5 million sq.ft.", composition "Industrial: 81.6% Office: 18.1% Multi-family: 0.3%", "Gross Asset Value $3.4 billion". |
Pension fund | 247,000 sq ft of Victoria office; 67 assets and 12.5M sq ft company-wideA |
| Bosa Development Bought the Empress from Ivanhoe Cambridge in 2014 and Dockside Green in Vic West from Vancity's Dockside Green Limited in 2017. Both from named outlets; no portfolio figure is published by the company on any page opened. |
Family / private | 477 guestrooms (Fairmont Empress) plus Dockside GreenB |
?
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 holds Royal Jubilee Hospital, the single most valuable parcel in the city. Island Health's own site 404s on every Royal Jubilee URL tried and the roll names nobody.
- Who owns the Parliament Buildings at 501 Belleville Street as a matter of record. The 2026 roll assesses them at $139,671,000 ($103,360,000 land + $36,311,000 improvements), entirely exempt with a zero levy, and leg.bc.ca publishes no server-rendered page that states the owner.
- Who owns 1515 Douglas Street, 1321 Blanshard Street, 1700 Blanshard Street and 819 Yates Street — four of the ten most valuable taxable parcels in Victoria, each of which would need an $11.06 title search.
- Who owns 187 Dallas Road (Ogden Point), assessed at $131,850,000 with $41,348,000 exempt and a $1,800,912.74 levy. The Greater Victoria Harbour Authority's home page opened and says nothing about ownership; /about-us 404s.
- Jawl Properties' Victoria portfolio. It is the co-owner of Capital Park and widely the city's largest private office landlord, and neither jawl.ca nor jawl.com returns a usable page.
- Whether a LOTR transparency report has been filed against any Victoria parcel named here. The section 35 public search is free but requires an LTSA account, which was not opened for this record.
- BC publishes no price-paid dataset. Property Transfer Tax open data is transaction counts and values by municipality and regional district, with small municipalities suppressed.
- BC Assessment's full roll (Data Advice) is licensed to named users only; there is no public bulk assessment roll, and bcassessment.ca forbids commercial use of its own values outright.
- LOTR covers only land held through corporations, trusts and partnerships — land held directly by an individual is out of scope — and filings began 30 November 2020, so long-static holdings may be incompletely reported.
- Local-government officials' real-property disclosures under BC's Financial Disclosure Act exist but are not published: section 6(1) requires the disclosure clerk only to "produce for inspection, on request during normal business hours" the written disclosure filed by a nominee or municipal official. Nothing in this record's civic section could be filled from an online source.
§
Sources
- Property Assessment Report 2026 (City of Victoria) — City of Victoria Open Data, sourced from BC Assessment · openA
- Property Tax Report 2026 (City of Victoria) — City of Victoria Open Data · openA
- 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 home page and copyright notice — BC Assessment · openA
- Open Government Licence – City of Victoria — City of Victoria Open Data Portal · openA
- Mayfair Shopping Centre sold to investor with long-term plans for redevelopment — CHEK News · openA
- New owners of Hillside Centre developed it in 1969 (Dec 2013) and Hillside Centre — Contact Us — Victoria Times Colonist; Hillside Centre · openB
- Leyad — Portfolio — Leyad · openA
- Victoria's Fairmont Empress Hotel purchased by Vancouver developer Nat Bosa — Daily Hive · openA
- The SHAPE Portfolio — Uptown, Victoria BC — SHAPE Properties · openA
- 'Last piece of puzzle' for Capital Park, $250M residential, offices, public spaces project — Times Colonist, republished by Concert Properties · openA
- BGO expands multi-family portfolio with acquisition of Blueprint Residences in Victoria, BC — BGO · openA
- City Owned Parcels (OpenData_Land layer 3) — City of Victoria Open Data · openA
- Empress Hotel owners buying Dockside Green in Vic West — Victoria Times Colonist · openA
- About Abstract Developments — Abstract Developments · openA
- Townline home page — Townline · openA
- About Us — Aragon Properties · openA
- Commercial — Commercial Properties by the Numbers — Concert Properties · openA
- Table 34-10-0154-01 — CMHC housing starts, under construction and completions in selected census metropolitan areas, monthly (Victoria CMA, vectors 42127520, 42127524, 42127525) — Statistics Canada / Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation · openA
- Financial Disclosure Act, RSBC 1996 c. 139, s. 6(1) — Queen's Printer, BC Laws · openA
- Ivanhoé Cambridge — notice that it now operates under the La Caisse brand — Ivanhoé Cambridge / La Caisse · openA
- WestUrban Developments Ltd. home page — WestUrban Developments · openA