800 Granville Street | 137.5m | 42, 38 fl | Proposed

[idunno]

Woah. Did not see that coming. Though maybe they're not so much developers as land-owners.

[Spr0ckets]

Originally Posted by jollyburger

Bonnis is selling

800 Granville Street, Vancouver
for Sale 670,000 sq. ft.



https://www.cbre.ca/properties/other/det...treet-vancouver-british-columbia-v6z-1k3

The market must be in far worse shape than any of us are aware of.

I wonder what this portends for their other Granville Street and Granville adjacent area properties - some of which were potentially also going to get redeveloped or sold like this one now is.

[bb1510]

Honestly, not surprising. Most within the industry know they're not doing well and trying to liquidate a lot of things

[Changing City]

A Storeys article last year said they were trying to get CMHC funding for the rental towers in the project. I'm guessing that didn't happen. We've seen several Downtown projects that Bonnis have advanced in recent years, only to drop them or sell them off.

They've only built one building, at 950 Granville, and put that up for sale last year. They sold off their earlier Marshalls/Best Buy/retail building for $140m, the Hudson retail podium for $89m, and the Tom Lee building for $38m back in 2016. They put their Robson/Seymour site on the market, and supposedly sold it (although no sign of a development proposal yet) and 526 Granville with an approved office tower on top of a heritage building where Bonnis have their offices.

So lots of proposals, but not a lot achieved.

[jollyburger]

And the default on that LA project

https://storeys.com/bonnis-properties-los-angeles-default/

Rezoning on 600 Kingsway got approved this month as well.

[griswold]

Very cool of them to waste years of everyone's time.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by phesto

Every developer wants quick approvals, but I'm guessing in this case Bonnis is likely to try to sell the site quickly after it's approved. They've had to sell almost all of their properties.

I'd just like to acknowledge the accuracy of this prediction for March 2025...

[Metro-One]

Originally Posted by griswold

Very cool of them to waste years of everyone's time.

Yeah, this pisses me off. Such a waste of time and manpower.

[officedweller]

It really depends on whether the purchaser would build the project as proposed and approved. Personally, I hope they tweak it.

[Glow Fun City]

As long as the Commodore gets a proper loading bay and freight elevator I’m happy.

[Spr0ckets]

Originally Posted by officedweller

It really depends on whether the purchaser would build the project as proposed and approved. Personally, I hope they tweak it.

I'd be stunned if any potential purchaser builds it as proposed and approved without any tweaks.

Though I don't think they'd be the kind of tweaks that the crowd on this forum would be happy with.

(specifically, I'd imagine both towers will likely lose several floors and get shorter to reflect the current reality.
On the flip side, the office market seems to be making a (slow) recovery, so maybe they could be more office space added to the podium to reflect that)

[jollyburger]

Originally Posted by Spr0ckets

I'd be stunned if any potential purchaser builds it as proposed and approved without any tweaks.

Though I don't think they'd be the kind of tweaks that the crowd on this forum would be happy with.

(specifically, I'd imagine both towers will likely lose several floors and get shorter to reflect the current reality.
On the flip side, the office market seems to be making a (slow) recovery, so maybe they could be more office space added to the podium to reflect that)

I think most people on SSP just want anything built on that site with some kind of retail/entertainment component and large video screens. I mean any tower form with residential/hotel/office will just help make the street more active.

[s211]

Originally Posted by Spr0ckets

On the flip side, the office market seems to be making a (slow) recovery, so maybe they could be more office space added to the podium to reflect that)

As a market participant in the office market, I'd say the opposite. That part of town has become a no-fly zone for meaningful office demand. If anything, if I bought the property I'd be scaling the office back as much as possible, if not deleting completely.

[Glow Fun City]

Maybe we’ll see more hotel rooms instead? I’m less keen on residential on Granville Street as it conflicts more with proper entertainment use

[jollyburger]

Howard Chai's article on the sale (end of the article is behind a paywall)

Bonnis Properties Lists Landmark Granville Street Project, Facing Lawsuit On Broadway

“During this recessionary period projects of scale are simply challenging,” said Kerry Bonnis in a statement provided to The Realist. “We have therefore engaged agents to assist finding a JV partner or alternatively for a sale, while we still continue to explore avenues to move the vision forward.”

The listing has no asking price and includes no property details, but described the offering as a “generational investment opportunity for a precedent-setting mixed-use redevelopment project of scale.”

https://howardchai.substack.com/p/bonnis-properties-800-876-granville-street-vancouver-listing

[griswold]

I hope there are stipulations in their contract with the city to impose fines on them for wasting everyone's time.

[jollyburger]

I mean who cares there's lots of projects that stall. I mean look at the market.

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by griswold

I hope there are stipulations in their contract with the city to impose fines on them for wasting everyone's time.

That's not how it works. They submit their proposal (or in their case, two proposals), pay the fee, and get a result. In their case, it went to Council in February, and was approved.

There was never any chance that a company like Bonnis could pull off the funding for a project as ambitious as they were proposing without other financial support. They indicated they were looking for a loan from CMHC for the rental housing, but as that hasn't been mentioned recently, they may not have qualified. So now they're hoping to offload the site, either as a joint venture, or to someone who actually wants to build it, or something like it. Which, as jollyburger suggests, might be a stretch.

[whatnext]

Could a hotel go in here without rezoning?

[Glow Fun City]

Originally Posted by whatnext

Could a hotel go in here without rezoning?

Probably would just need an amendment to the current rezoning, as there are some hotel rooms on level 6 through 8 already.