Client: Appelt Properties
Overview
Appelt Properties bought five legal lots on the corner of Martin Street and Wade Avenue in downtown Penticton in 2012. For the next 12 years they were a surface parking lot. Penticton council approved a development permit for a six-storey market rental building in August 2024, and the building opened on September 25, 2026. It holds 75 rental homes: 45 one-bedroom, 25 two-bedroom and five three-bedroom units.
Challenge
The question was whether a downtown parking lot would earn more as homes than as stalls. Fitting six storeys of housing on the site meant giving up most of its parking. A low parking ratio narrows the tenant market and can push parking demand onto surrounding streets.
Approach
Appelt treated the five lots as one site, which gave the building more frontage and a larger floor plate than any single lot could. The building has 26 stalls in a covered, secure garage, or 0.35 per home, plus 40 secure bicycle spaces. It is a bet that downtown tenants will walk, cycle or do without a second car. The site sits in the downtown core, where the City has directed growth. The building needed only a development permit for its form and character.
Outcome
The building opened just over 25 months after council approval. Appelt’s chief financial officer, Justin Bierwirth, called it “the easiest, best process that we’ve gone through.” It adds 75 rental homes in a city whose 2024 Interim Housing Needs Report puts the need at almost 6,300 new homes, or 315 a year. Mayor Julius Bloomfield described the opening as “part of that direction” toward densification.