11 responses so far ↓

• 1 Roger Kemble // Sep 28, 2010 at 9:52 am

  If I had C$2M I’d buy in . . . it’s beautiful . . . sorry we blew it!

• 2 Jake // Sep 28, 2010 at 11:24 am

  Reading the comments posted with The Globe & Mail, it never ceases to amaze me how so many people have such strong opinions on things they clearly know nothing about.

• 3 ThinkOutsideABox // Sep 28, 2010 at 11:28 am

  Do you believe?

  ♫ I believe in the power of you and I….♫

• 4 jesse // Sep 28, 2010 at 1:16 pm

  So how can CHF make a go of it and others can’t?

• 5 FastEddy // Sep 28, 2010 at 3:39 pm

  “Are the taxpayers at risk? Absolutely not. Are Vancouver citizens at risk? Yes. There is a good chance that in the short term they may not make $1.5 billion in real estate profits. It may only be $1.3 billion. How many cities would love to have this problem? In the long term however, the public and private sales will generate hundreds of millions of dollars on lands that we purchased for $50 million.”

  -Sam Sullivan January 2009

• 6 archie's dad // Sep 28, 2010 at 7:30 pm

  Sorry folks, no one wants to live in a cramped box canyon of viewless curtain walls, be they gainfully employed or otherwise.
  Let this please be a lesson for future high-rise high-density development in Vancouver.

• 7 Frances Bula // Sep 28, 2010 at 7:33 pm

  Jesse — For one, CHF was only bidding on one building, the one that would be almost all market-rent apartments.

• 8 Joe Just Joe // Sep 28, 2010 at 8:56 pm

  Wonder if the fact no one wants to touch the social housing will provide justification for the city to eliminate the social housing component. Maybe the rfp writers were much more skilled then I originally imagined.

• 9 rf // Sep 29, 2010 at 8:04 am

  Can’t wait to hear the Vision on how this cluster*&$# is the NPA’s fault.

  Vision needs to wear this one. It says a lot when no one, even non-profits, don’t want to get involved with them.

• 10 Mark Allerton // Sep 29, 2010 at 8:43 am

  I’m with Roger – I think the OV has so much potential as a neighbourhood, but my word, those prices.

  Regarding blame: if the thing you want to assign blame for is that the City is on the hook for this lot, you really have to look back to the decision that was made to require a private developer to complete the site before they had ownership of the land. While this was done for the best of reasons, it prevented Millenium from borrowing from a conventional lender like a bank and had them borrowing at usurious rates from a hedge fund who then, come the financial crisis, got cold feet.

  Had this gone differently, the condos would still be overpriced but that would be a problem for Millenium and their bankers. Unfortunately, now the City is Millenium’s banker.

  (All of this can be gleaned from the leaked OV memos that Frances posted last year, as I commented at the time.)

• 11 Dan Cooper // Sep 29, 2010 at 11:26 am

  So, new Frances Bula article up, about the Province rejecting all three applicants.

  “Housing Minister Rich Coleman said Tuesday that two of the three bids that came in by BC Housing’s Monday deadline were from operators who don’t have the experience in operating such a complex mix of market and social-housing units. The third bidder wants to establish a co-op, which is not part of his ministry’s mandate, he said.”

  Hmm. Question A: Is there anyone who actually has such experience? Question B: If these bidders aren’t good enough, and there are no other bidders, then what is the Province’s plan, other of course than letting the buildings sit empty?

  I am suddenly reminded of a place I worked in the past – in fact, the same one I wrote about before, which completely ceased functioning at one point due to horrific executive decision-making. Another time, about 1/4 of our front line staff positions were empty. The line manager kept interviewing people, but saying none of them were quite good enough. Meanwhile, the work load on the remaining staff was becoming unsustainable. Finally, the lead worker, the union steward, and the quality assurance reviewer – me – went together to the manager and demanded the positions be filled. The four of us interviewed applicants together and hired for all the positions, several with people whom the manager interviewing alone had previously rejected. And you know what? Two out of four of them (including one of the “long shots”) were truly amazing workers. The third was decent, and even the last one was much better than an empty chair.

  It’s time to fill the Millenium buildings with paying residents, so the taxpayers don’t go bust. If that means bringing in an operator that is not quite what the Province had in mind, then so be it.