Every time I hear about some crazy price paid for a piece of developable land in the city, it is superceded a few months later by an even crazier price.
The latest was the $46 million paid for 950 West Broadway by someone who appears to be a newbie buyer/developer in town (see story), which was even higher per buildable square foot than the price the Pappajohns paid for the Denny’s site at Broadway and Hemlock. And that was higher than the price someone paid for the Mercedes-Benz site a few years ago. Et cetera. All part of the sudden attraction of Broadway for buyers, as everyone awaits the new transit line.
It’s all kinda nuts, as is everything in Vancouver these days, and I have the luck to record it for posterity.
3 responses so far ↓
1 Look Deeper // Aug 23, 2016 at 9:43 pm
“Nuts” is the right word.
2 boohoo // Aug 24, 2016 at 1:44 am
A problem with every one paying more than it’s worth is they’ll try desperately to provide the most basic, cheapest product they can which leaves us with what we’re getting in a lot of cases: generic, boring, bland architecture with a gaping hole in real public amenities being provided.
3 peakie // Oct 31, 2016 at 1:24 pm
950 West Broadway was Lombok Asian-fusion restaurant on the east side. And the first time I encountered and found that there was actually a Karaoke promoter circuit around North America for people too shy to come forward.
On the west side of the same building was Chevy’s, the first of the gourmet hamburger places in town before the ubiquitous Earls and their fried-everything, (including salads). Chevies was later sued by GMotors for copyright protection of the Chevy name.
Parking for this unique building was a narrow central alley from Broadway under the building to a ground level parking lot at street level, Rather a tight fit for many cars.
I see that the Scotiabank at the southwest corner of Oak and Broadway has moved across the street to the empty BCAA building, leaving a corner lot for another fanciful subway-oriented corner tower.
I read in the papers that the builder of the new development on the southeast corner had to make a subterranean allowance for a subway exit in his building in he ex-strip mall square.
Has Vision really reassured the land speculators that a subway will bring people to their building?
See the subway vs LRT controversies in Big Smoke Toronto which has had a subway, much above ground for more than a half-century.