Safeway Sale at Ocean Park: What It Means for South Surrey

If you shop the Safeway at 16 Avenue and 128 Street, the sign on the door hasn't changed — but the ownership behind it has.

Crombie REIT, a Nova Scotia–based real estate investment trust, confirmed in its second-quarter report that it picked up the Ocean Park Safeway back in late April for $12.7 million. The seller was a subsidiary of Empire, the parent company behind the Safeway banner, and Empire is also one of Crombie's largest unitholders. After closing, Crombie turned around and leased the 30,000 sq. ft. building right back to an Empire subsidiary — so the grocery store keeps operating exactly as it has.

One clarification worth making, because it trips people up locally: the Safeway shares a parking lot with Ocean Park Shopping Centre, but it sits on its own legal parcel. The rest of the plaza — Rexall, BC Liquor, Coast Capital, Cobs Bread and the others — is separately owned and wasn't part of this transaction.

The detail that actually matters for homeowners

Crombie sorts its holdings into two buckets: income-producing and redevelopment. The Ocean Park Safeway landed in the income-producing column. In plain terms, the plan is to collect rent from a working grocery store, not to fence it off and start pouring concrete. That could shift years down the road — these designations aren't permanent — but there's no tower proposal sitting behind this purchase today.

I bring that up because I get the question constantly across Crescent Beach and Ocean Park: is the shopping centre going to get redeveloped? Right now, for this site, the answer is no.

Why Crombie's name is worth knowing

The reason locals should recognize this owner is that Crombie is genuinely busy in BC. Of the 25 sites on its major development pipeline, 12 are in this province — most of them Safeways sitting on transit-adjacent land the REIT has flagged as having room for housing above.

A few from the list that are close to home:

• Surrey (8860 152 Street) — labelled a medium-term project, with no redevelopment plans made public yet and no entitlements secured. If you're tracking that corridor, it's worth watching Surrey homes for sale in the surrounding blocks.

• Port Coquitlam — on the long-term list, alongside New Westminster. Same story for Port Coquitlam and New Westminster buyers.

• Commercial-Broadway in Vancouver — the furthest along by a wide margin. Council approved the three-tower project last year after a heavily contested public hearing.

• Lynn Valley in North Vancouver — a preliminary application for roughly 479 units across four buildings, now a 50/50 partnership with Wesgroup, still short of a formal rezoning submission.

The pattern is hard to miss. Aging grocery-anchored sites on big surface lots near transit are where a lot of the region's next housing is going to come from. If you want to understand how that gets approved in our area, my zoning guide walks through the basics. Ocean Park just isn't in that queue yet.

What I'd take away from it

Two things.

First, a stable, well-tenanted grocery anchor a short drive from home is a quiet asset when you go to sell. Walkable daily amenities show up in buyer behaviour long before they show up in listing copy — something I factor in on every home evaluation I do in this area.

Second, if you own within a few blocks of any of these Crombie-held sites, it's worth knowing where your neighbourhood sits on that pipeline. A near-term redevelopment and a long-term one have very different implications for timing a sale — and if you're on the buying side, my home buying guide covers what to look at before you commit.

If you're weighing a move in South Surrey, Ocean Park, White Rock or Crescent Beach and want a straight read on what your home is worth in today's market, give me a call at 604-928-1361 or get in touch. Happy to walk you through it.