Dozens of properties listed for sale in Fraser Valley downtowns

For sale: your local downtown.

The Fraser Valley’s historic downtowns are more vibrant than a decade ago, but as 2025 dawns, prominent chunks of property in Chilliwack, Abbotsford, and Mission’s cores are waiting for new owners—and potentially setting the stage for development and change.

Among the properties listed for sale are a series of multi-tenant buildings on either side of downtown Abbotsford’s busiest road, a Five Corners landmark and historic hotel in Chilliwack, a multitude of storefronts on Mission’s First Avenue, and three major commercial properties in Hope.

To view each listing, just click the appropriate link.

Abbotsford: big prices, big hopes

Sitting at the heart of Abbotsford’s historic downtown, Essendene Avenue has been a focal point of commerce in the city for more than 100 years. The last decade has been largely good to the commercial artery, with new businesses rejuvenating an area that had suffered as consumers turned to big box stores in the ’90s and early 2000s.

As the area continues to evolve, a single one-block stretch of Essendene is home to the Fraser Valley’s densest concentration of property owners looking to unload their land.

Over the last year, nearly half of all buildings on Essendene between Montrose and Montvue avenues have been available to purchase. The Fraser Valley Inn has been for sale for years, but it’s been joined on the market by a tidy three-unit commercial building that is home to The Polly Fox and two other retail units. A little further down, a modest building occupied by Little Saigon Kitchen is also up for sale.

On the opposite side of the road, two adjacent buildings occupied by four different storefronts have been listed together. And at the corner of Montvue and Essendene, a building currently occupied by a vape store was listed for sale for much of last year, before selling in October for $3 million, according to Assessment BC.

A handful of other properties have been listed for sale around the downtown core, including another Essendene building that is home to Core Fitness & Rehab and two properties on Montrose’s busiest stretch. Those include the old (but not historic) Ivana’s Teahouse building, which has been approved for redevelopment but is still standing, and a Montrose Place unit currently occupied by Tracycakes.

The Ivana’s Teahouse building, the Fraser Valley Inn, and two others in the area are all marketed toward developers.

Before it was put up for sale, the owners of the Fraser Valley Inn site had hoped to build a large new multi-use building. The owners had pitched a vision for the Essendene-Montvue junction separating the Inn and a nearby parking lot, hoping to create a walkable plaza at the centre of their new development. The city, though, has its own plan for the complicated junction and the owners have been trying to sell the two properties ever since.

To the south of the Fraser Valley Inn, a building currently leased by an Angry Otter liquor store is listed for sale for nearly $9 million. That price speaks to the ability to build a mixed-use building on the property.

Similarly, a small property at the intersection of George Ferguson Way and Gladys Avenue is listed for $3 million. That site, which used to be home to a single-family house that has since been torn down, has already been rezoned to allow for the construction of a 21-unit apartment building.

Finally, on Pauline Street, close to Jubilee Park, a two-storey apartment building has been listed for $2.45 million.

In an email, Abbotsford’s Downtown Business Association executive director Jennifer MacEwan wrote that the area remains attractive and that most properties up for sale have had longstanding tenants, suggesting owners don’t have financial difficulties. She speculated that interest rates and development potential could be linked to some owners looking to sell.

Mission: A lack of traction

The number of storefronts for sale in the historic cores of Chilliwack, Mission, Abbotsford, and Hope suggests any trend towards downtown sales is likely a regional one, rather than tied to a specific municipality. (It’s worth noting that listings in the downtown cores of Langley City, Aldergrove, and Maple Ridge are almost non-existant.)

The downtowns of the four communities have significantly more listings than other commercial areas in each municipality. But they are also unique within their respective cities.

Whereas strip malls are generally owned by large real estate investment corporations, the downtown properties frequently have only one or two units, allowing small businesses to own their own building. Rent is also generally lower. It’s also often significantly cheaper to rent an older downtown unit than a spot in a strip mall with plenty of parking. That’s good for mom-and-pop stores, but both those businesses and their landlords can be more susceptible to economic disruption, and have less financial wiggle room than the corporations that frequently invest in strip malls and large commercial outlets.

A Mission realtor told The Current that he senses many owners are feeling the economic pinch of higher costs.

“It’s a death by 1,000 cuts right now,” said Manny Deol, a realtor who has represented local property owners and served on both MIssion’s Chamber of Commerce and Downtown Business Association. “Inventory is more expensive, the cost to run a business is more expensive, now your rent is getting more expensive.”

The downtown core along First Avenue has Mission’s only commercial buildings not in a plaza complex. That makes it the only place a businessperson could own their storefront. Deol said the area’s relatively affordable prices have also made the area attractive to real estate investors who are content with making a relatively modest sum of rent each month while holding property that tends to increase in value.

“There’s a lot of out-of-town investors that have buildings in Mission,” Deol said. “They’re cheap, they kind of park their money, and they leave.”

In many larger commercial complexes, rents are “triple net,” meaning they factor in insurance costs, building maintenance, and property taxes. But that hasn’t historically been the case in downtown Mission, where Deol said rents have often been simple flat fees. That has left some property owners feeling the impact of rising costs, while looking at the development potential in the area.

Some owners have looked at the First Avenue corridor’s development potential—linked both to city policies and the nearby West Coast Express station and—begun to eye a pay day, Deol said.

“People are thinking ‘Oh, you can go up this high, let’s just sell this.’”

So far, though, demand has been low, with the area’s geographic constraints deterring some potential developers.

“They’re not getting that much traction,” he said.

Along downtown Mission’s three busiest blocks, between Grand and Horne streets, eight properties are listed for sale. Their prices vary widely, suggesting their sellers have very different expectations and needs.

On the western end of the downtown, a narrow vacant lot at the corner of First and Grand is listed at $1.2 million, vastly more than the assessed value of $250,000. Next door, the Mission City Theater-turned-book shop is listed at $2.8 million, with the realtor suggesting the current building could serve a variety of purposes or the site could be redeveloped into a modest highrise.

A few doors to the east, the Mission Record new owners are looking at selling the paper’s office. The building dates back to 1940 and is listed for just $825,000, less than its appraised value. (Deol called it a “steal of a deal.”)

Across the road, meanwhile, a larger 97-year-old building with two retail units and three apartments on its second level is listed for $3.4 million—about $800,000 above its steadily climbing assessed value.

There are three other listings in the two blocks to the east.

On the north side of the road, the former home of Rex Cox Menswear has been vacant for more than two years. It’s for sale for about $2.8 million. Further down, on the south side of the road, a narrow building that fronts both First Avenue and North Railway Avenue is listed for $1.1 million. And three doors to the west, the long-time home of Eleni’s Restaurant is posted for $2 million, with the seller touting the solid current tenants and the long-term opportunity to develop a parking lot on the property along North Railway.

Parking is a major challenge to development hopes for the area, Deol said. Although new provincial rules surrounding transit hubs mean the City of Mission cannot set parking minimums—or reject a residential development proposal because of a lack of parking—the builders say buyers expect and need a place to store their vehicles.

“When I’m presenting to developers, they’re going ‘OK, we can go up that high, but [there’s] no parking? What are these people going to do with no parking? That train runs three or four times a day.’”

Deol noted that condo prices in Mission are similar to those in Langley. He said people have long been lured to Mission by the availability of affordable single-family homes. Building and marketing condos in the city remains a challenge, he said, especially if parking isn’t available.

“The downtown floor-space ratio determining how high you can go in the downtown has always been high,” he said. “It’s just not being utilized because you need parking.”

Mission’s hillside location provides challenges and opportunities on that front: Deol said properties on the south side of First Avenue are much better suited to underground parking than those on the north side.

Chilliwack: Cornering the market

Chilliwack’s downtown has fewer downtown properties for sale than its neighbours to the west. But the sites that are listed are some of the most prominent buildings in the city’s historic core.

The Royal Hotel has sat at the corner of Wellington and Main—and at the centre of downtown life—for 116 years now. It boasts a 155-seat restaurant, a banquet room, 27 “bed and breakfast suites,” and has been partially renovated twice since the turn of the century, most recently in 2022. But the site has struggled for stability in recent decades and last spring, two relatively new tenants, Whiskey Richards and Tokyo Café, were locked out of their spaces, according to a social media post by the former business. In the fall, the entire building was listed for sale, with the property’s listing saying any sale is “subject to court approval.” (Court-ordered sales often, though not always, take place after a foreclosure.) Although the building had an initial asking price of $5.1 million, that has now been reduced to $4 million.

At nearby Five Corners, the city’s most prominent intersection, another downtown landmark is for sale. The home of Red Chillies Sports Bar is listed for about $2 million. Although the building has also gone through several tenants, the listing says Red Chillies signed a five-year lease in 2022 and rental income is now around $140,000.

And at another prominent junction to the south, a wedge-shaped multi-unit building at the corner of Young and Princess has been seeking a new owner for more than half a year, despite the listing declaring the owner to be a “Motivated Seller!” not once, but twice. The building, which is listed for $3.6 million, has six retail units plus six apartments on the second floor, along with development potential.

Three other prominent sites are for sale a little further from Five Corners, but still in Chilliwack’s commercial downtown core,

At the corner of Spadina and Main, a commercial building with six retail units and one office space is listed for $2.35 million. The listing says current lease rates are below market value and could be raised. The property is across from the former Cheam View United Church, which is now being developed into a multi-family housing project, and its listing suggests the possibility of future mixed-use development.

Another sizeable multi-unit building is listed for sale along Young Road, just south of downtown. The owner of the small strip mall is hoping to get $6 million for the property, touting its present-day tenants and long-term development potential.

Finally, just southeast of District 1881, at the corner of Nowell and Princess Avenue, a historic house-turned-restaurant is back on the market. The building has housed a string of restaurants over the last decade, including the Duke of Dublin, Society Gathering House, Twisted Thistle, the Gardenia House, Engumi’s, and Garam Masala. The building and property is listed for $2.5 million, and the seller suggests a high-rise could be built in the area. The building is also definitely not haunted, its owner said in 2023.

Every property—and its owner—ends up on the market for different reasons. But many have similarities Tom Rossiter, who operates a real estate-focused tech and information company called RESAAS out of Vancouver, attributes at least some of the upheaval to changes to interest rates.

“The theme we’ve seen in general across North America is that interest rates have caught up with everyone,” Rossiter told The Current. Interest hikes, following a prolonged period of record low rates, have left some owners facing hard decisions when their low-interest mortgage comes up for renewal.

“We’ve seen a lot of commercial landlords dispose of properties, not perhaps willingly, just because economically there isn’t the demand to sustain the rental income to match the cost of renewing with a higher interest rate.”

Hope: Seven-figure dreams

Hope’s small-but-vibrant downtown core is also seeing some owners looking to sell. And even in the small community, four owners along the city’s busiest downtown street are asking for seven-figure paydays.

Perhaps the most prominent listing on Wallace Street is between 4th and 5th avenues, where the owner of a single building with a half-dozen small tenants—including Danny’s Pizza & Pasta and Lizzy’s Barber Shop—is asking $2.4 million for their property. The listing calls the site a “prime development opportunity” and that it is located in “one of Chilliwack’s [sic] most desirable rental areas.”

Further to the east, the home of the Kingpin Lounge is listed for $2.9 million. The building used to be used for bowing and retains its “mostly operational lanes and equipment,” according to the ad.*

And just across the road from the Kingpin Lounge, a large six-unit commercial building that is home to Kimchi Restaurant and Rolling Pin Bakery is listed for $4.2 million.

Finally, the owner of the Hope Cinema is still seeking a buyer, with the property listed for $900,000. The cinema closed its doors last fall, with two successive operators (who leased the building) failing to make the business work. The price has been reduced by $100,000 since September, when The Current wrote about the listing. At the time, Mayor Victor Smith said the district wasn’t interested in purchasing and running a theatre.

*Disclosure: the Kingpin Lounge building’s realtor is a friend of the author’s. That fact only came to light after the paragraph in question was written.