Surrey, TransLink and BC Hydro are jointly installing the road, power and drainage capacity that unlocks the next wave of Campbell Heights industrial. The clue is in the drainage scope.
Drive 32 Avenue between 176 and 184 Street right now and you will see crews, retaining walls and a torn-up corridor. The City of Surrey is calling it a road-widening and a truck-safety upgrade. Read the project documents closely and a different story emerges: this is the servicing backbone for the next phase of industrial build-out in Campbell Heights, paid for by three different public bodies at once.
For anyone tracking Greater Vancouver industrial supply, that distinction matters more than the traffic cones.
What is actually being built
The work underway is Phase 2 of the 32 Avenue improvements, running from 176 Street to 184 Street. It is a $14.4 million project that widens the road from two lanes to four and adds a multiuse pathway on the south side. Surrey council approved roughly $15 million for it in February 2025, the project broke ground at a ceremony in July 2025, and completion is anticipated by Fall 2026.
The tender scope is broader than asphalt. It covers roughly 1,700 metres of widening from just west of 176 Street to 184 Street, including retaining walls, curbs, paving, storm drainage, streetlighting and traffic signals. The engineering construction services contract for this phase went to RF Binnie & Associates for $555,083.
This is the middle of a sequenced program. Phase 1, from 184 to 188 Street, was completed in June 2025. Phase 3, from 192 to 196 Street, is scheduled to begin in 2027. The City has signalled a continuous build-out of the 32 Avenue corridor from 176 Street all the way to 196 Street.
Follow the funding
The first tell is who is paying. TransLink is contributing $7.2 million toward the first two phases because 32 Avenue is a designated truck route in the region’s Major Road Network. And on the prior phase, the City delivered BC Hydro’s planned electrical duct bank to service the Campbell Heights area, with that duct bank work funded entirely by BC Hydro.
So three entities, the City, a regional transportation authority and a Crown utility, are coordinating to install road capacity, electrical servicing and stormwater capacity along the same corridor on the same timeline. That is not how you fix a traffic problem. That is how you service developable land.
Follow the drainage
The second and sharper tell is in the drainage scope. In its own materials, the City states the Phase 2 contract includes drainage upgrades to improve conveyance to Erickson Creek and, in the City’s words, to “support future upland development.”
That phrase is the story. Stormwater capacity is being engineered now, ahead of demand, specifically to enable more development on the upland parcels along the corridor. Combine that with the BC Hydro duct bank and the four-lane road, and the function of this project becomes clear. The public framing is goods movement and safety. Mayor Brenda Locke summed up that framing at the groundbreaking with the line that trucking is the economy on wheels. The underlying reality is that the corridor is being wired for its next generation of industrial buildings.
Why this matters for the market
Here is the part most coverage misses. This servicing push is arriving at the exact moment the Metro Vancouver industrial market has loosened. Availability has climbed to multi-year highs across the region per recent brokerage reporting, asking lease rates have softened, and speculative development starts have pulled back sharply from their peak.
In other words, public infrastructure is actively preparing the ground for more Campbell Heights supply into a market that is already working through a surplus. For investors and occupiers, the read is straightforward: the 32 Avenue corridor is where the next tranche of developable, fully-serviced industrial land in southeast Surrey is being created. Watch the parcels along this stretch. Serviced land does not stay raw for long once the road, the power and the drainage are in.
For owners and developers already holding land here, the infrastructure is a tailwind for value and a signal that the City intends this corridor to keep absorbing growth. For tenants, it points to where new options will surface over the next several years, likely on more favourable terms than the sub-one-percent-vacancy era that defined this park until recently.
One important clarification
This project routes drainage to Erickson Creek, a watercourse in the central and northern portion of Campbell Heights. It should not be confused with the separate and more contentious South Campbell Heights lands further south, near 16 to 24 Avenue, which sit in a different watershed. The 32 Avenue servicing story stands on its own: it is about enabling upland development along this corridor, and it is fully documented in the City’s own records.
IndustrialVancouver.ca tracks supply, servicing and market signals across the Greater Vancouver industrial market. Have a tip on a corridor we should be watching? Get in touch.
Sources: City of Surrey press release on the Phase 2 groundbreaking (July 2025); City of Surrey BC Bid tender, “32 Avenue Improvements 176 Street to 184 Street”; City of Surrey capital-projects page for 32 Avenue; Peace Arch News and North Delta Reporter (council approval and engineering services contract); Surrey Now-Leader (groundbreaking coverage).