The Ultimate Vancouver Rumour Thread!

[djh]

I was in a sales showroom this weekend for a development near the SEFC project. The saleswoman, obviously keen to land what she believes is an out-of-town sucker (being a Brit and underplaying my knowledge of the area), she went on a real hard sales pitch about how good a bargain the area east of the Olympic Village is - considering the projects there are "$800/sq. ft and up", whereas her development is $500/sq. ft.
So I started pointing to blank boxes on her area map. "What's there?" - she completely ignored the drug rehabilitation facility I knew about on the block. "Oh, just warehouses." "What about there?", "Oh, low-rise buildings - they won't block your view". Then she pointed on her map to what was clearly labelled "Finning Station". I asked her "What's that?" "Oh, they're building the Millennium Line station there. I had the guy from Translink in just a few days ago and he said it's going ahead, definitely, and will probably go up to UBC. But there will *definitely* be a Skytrain station only a few blocks away should you choose to buy in our development..."

So I called her back on that issue. Now I am not sitting here holding my breath (or saying "a woman with a yellow hat on said they're adding another floor to the Shangri-La") and yes, salespeople will say the most outrageous things to land a sale, but the fact that this was clearly marked on the development plan for the area and she had (allegedly) actually talked to somebody in Translink about it...that's at least a good sign that the area plan has reserved space for the station, and by the way she's talking, they are already working behind the scenes on making it a reality, pending results of consultations or not.