Olympic Village & Southeast False Creek Updates Discussion

[madmigs]

Originally Posted by Micky Luv

As per my title, I'm seeking all members of this thread to share any insight about exactly who is in charge of the building efficiencies in the buildings now? The temperature last night was below -12 degrees and I've already heard some units heating weren't even working, with an ambient room temperature at 17-18 degrees at night with their thermostat set to MAX, people are complaining and now Millennium is off the hook, who will be responsible for this type of emergency? Any information will be greatly appreciated.

According to the monthly email from MAC Marketing Solutions(real estate) that Ernst & Young(the appointed reciever) "will be responsible for all management and business duties pertaining to the unsold homes." Not sure if that includes this kinda stuff. Do you guys have any kind of strata or property mgmt company(ie. like Baywest).

[squeezied]

I just came back from the Legacy Liquor store grand opening, a variety wines to taste and complimentary food!!! I actually ended up buying a bottle of chocolate red wine that I taste-tested (damn marketing tricks!). Anyways the layout is really nice and spacious, warm woody tones everywhere.

Store closes at 8, so get your asses there for free wine and food!

[jlousa]

Forgot to mention this earlier, looks like WCFC will be getting a another neighbour.

105-167 West 2nd Avenue
DE: Rezoning
Zoning: M-2 to CD-1
Application Status: Rezoning
Review: First
Architect: Walter Francl Architecture

Use:

To permit the development of three residential towers on a six-storey podium that includes retail uses at grade and a daycare. Tower heights proposed are 13-storeys, 15-storeys and 16-storeys.

[eduardo88]

Wow, that sounds pretty big. I like density, but I just hope that the are doesn't become a tower district. I like the massing of thr OV and I think that outside DT (for the most part) that's the type of density that should spread over most of thr city. There are areas that should build tall, but for thr most part a more human scale suits the city better. European style density (4-8 stories, row housing, wall-to-wall buildings) is the way to go, in my opinion.

[jlousa]

I agree, ideally outside the core we'd see 6-8story streetwalls along all arterials with perhaps punch-thrus up to 12 stories where arterials meet each other. Transitional areas would see 4 story walk ups or 4 story stacked townhouses. The rest of the city would be 3.5 story rowhouses.

I also agree that this proposal seems a little tall. The original grand vision for SEFC saw buildings tapering back down but it appears not to be the case anymore.

[invisibleairwaves]

Personally I think a few taller towers in the area would look good and make views from around False Creek even more impressive than they already are. Have to get that streetcar in there though.

I totally agree about the rest of the city though. I'd love to see more developments to that effect.

[sacrifice333]

Bad photo... but the James crane is going uP!

[red_lantern]

Let's hope they decorate some of the cranes in the OLV and the rest of the city for the holidays.

[c4c]

Originally Posted by red_lantern

Let's hope they decorate some of the cranes in the OLV and the rest of the city for the holidays.

On a side note and not saying you meant it this way but...
Pisses me off people gotta be worried about saying Christmas and feel the need to replace it with 'the holiday season' cause they think it might be offensive....

Do people now feel the need to replace Christmas lights with Holiday lights....
Get over it...

[officedweller]

Wall Financial doesn't light theirs up (because they're cheap)

[SpongeG]

some just went up in burnaby - i forget the name of the project its on lougheed the two towers and its anyway they have lights up and its very visible from hwy #1

[entheosfog]

Originally Posted by c4c

On a side note and not saying you meant it this way but...
Pisses me off people gotta be worried about saying Christmas and feel the need to replace it with 'the holiday season' cause they think it might be offensive....

Do people now feel the need to replace Christmas lights with Holiday lights....
Get over it...

But if someone's saying holidays just because that encompasses the entire 'season' and not trying to NOT offend anyone, then there's nothing wrong with that. I don't go out of my way to say Christmas just to appear non-politically correct, which I'm not most of the time
(if that made any sense...)

[jsbertram]

When I'm referring to the last week of the year, it is The Christmas Season.

Harrumph!

[SpongeG]

my muslim friend says merry christmas - the same way i tell him happy eid or eid mubarak - may as well call the holiday what it is - you don't say happy holiday to jewish friends you say happy hanakuh etc.

anyway - where is the newly opened liquor store? is it in the red building? or on one of the sides?

[dleung]

So on the evening news they said roughly 470 units need to be sold, and their initial total value was $884 million. Since the city's debt is $740 million, if the market was good the city could have actually profited about $140 million from this whole mess. With a 20% price reduction, they're only a little bit short ($30 million). So the average unit price of all these remaining units was almost $2 million?!

[SFUVancouver]

Originally Posted by dleung

...[snip]
So the average unit price of all these remaining units was almost $2 million?!

^ The average price might be that but the median price certainly is not.

Thanks for the James crane photo, Sacrifice333. One of the nice things about these smaller SEFC buildings vs downtown towers is that they have nice wide, shallow underground parking lots that are quick to dig and shore. It lets them move from ground breaking to crane erection many months, if not a year-plus, sooner

[Locked In]

Vancouver Sun article on the return to market of the OV condos:

Olympic-village condos to return to market at significant price cuts

Vancouver Sun November 29, 2010 10:16 PM

The troubled Olympic village will be back on the market Feb. 12, on the one-year anniversary of the 2010 Winter Olympics, with significant price reductions.

Marketing specialist Bob Rennie said Monday in an interview he will begin to market about 150 units in two to three waterfront buildings, including the signature Building 4 on the waterfront that housed the Canadian Olympic team. ...

“Everything is now on the table. These will be price-competitive to what is out on the market,” he said.

Further down the article:

Rennie said that by February, more than half the village’s 1,100 units will be occupied, including more than 350 private and city-owned rental units. That will go a long way toward resolving the image of a dead zone in the middle of the city, he said.

Source: Vancouver Sun

[sacrifice333]

It's not exactly a fully populated development down here, but it's certainly not a ghost town.

By February if they do fill up all the city's various rentals it'll be quite lively.

re: prices... if they do drop 20% across the board then starting prices would be more like $469000 - (93800) = $375200! And the top end price of $6M drops to $4.8M!!! Those figures should help move property. Though if they really wanted to sell everything, and quickly, I think they'd need to be looking at more like 30%+ price adjustments!

I'm renting a market sold unit here and the pic I took of James was from my balcony.

[jsbertram]

Originally Posted by SFUVancouver

^ The average price might be that but the median price certainly is not.

Thanks for the James crane photo, Sacrifice333. One of the nice things about these smaller SEFC buildings vs downtown towers is that they have nice wide, shallow underground parking lots that are quick to dig and shore. It lets them move from ground breaking to crane erection many months, if not a year-plus, sooner

The requirement for shallow underground parking lots may be because of the water table in the area? I thought 2nd ave was (waaaay back when) the shore line of False Creek. There were some news articles when the Olympic Village land was being dug out that they stumbled across the 1880s landfill & dump - created when that area of False Creek was the 'suburb' to Vancouver when the town was centred around Main and Hastings.

There was another article showing the Salt building (saved & restored for the OV development) was built on piers over False Creek - only the south face was actually on land so the salt delivery trucks could get to it, but the other three sides of the building were over water so the ships & barges could deliver the salt. (sort of like how Canada Place has its south side connected to the roads, but the other three sides are boat slips.)

[city-dweller]

I have forgotten the site rules for external website pictures so here is a link to the history of the area. Scroll down and you find two good images. link

Also, has anyone determined how much the security assests that M. gave to the CoV are worth? We heard about the cash amount but what about the assets?

As an aside, M. is in trouble with Evelyn another development on the northshore. I beleive it was in the news recently.