The Butterfly | 178.6m | 57Fl | Completed

[SpongeG]

as seen on youtube

• Video Link

• Video Link

[rofina]

All I can say is - thank you Westbank.

The are bringing three of the most unique towers in North America to our city - pretty blessed.

[excel]

Time to change the title. The Butterfly is a great name!

[excel]

After watching the second video it really shows how world class this building is minus the height of course. Pretty impressive though!

[Metro-One]

Originally Posted by excel

After watching the second video it really shows how world class this building is minus the height of course. Pretty impressive though!

179 meters doesn't bother me.

Of course like many on here I would love to see a couple 200 meter + towers built in Vancouver, but in all honesty, especially from a pedestrian level, any tower over 150 meters has a significant presence.

[whatnext]

Very interesting article in today's Globe & Mail, about a Vancouver resident being on the outside looking in at a foreign sales office for The Butterfly in Singapore. Basically shows why locals are f*cked:

...Mr. Robinson says he was encouraged by the salesman – who worked for a global real estate marketing company – to purchase a unit as a speculative investment, flipping the property before the building completes, thereby dodging some taxes - 5 per cent for GST, a 3-per-cent property-transfer tax and the 15-per-cent foreign-buyers tax - which only kick in at completion. (He was told Westbank takes a 3-per-cent fee when presale owners assign contracts. Charging a fee for assignments is a fairly standard practice in the development community. Westbank confirmed the fee.) The work sheet shows that if he did take possession of the unit, he'd owe the 5 per cent for GST, a 3-per-cent property-transfer tax and the 15-per-cent foreign-buyers tax. CIBC offered loans of up to 65 per cent of the value. He was told he could rent the unit for about $8,000 a month.

"The guy definitely stated that the purpose of the investment, as he saw it, was capital appreciation and not to hold onto it and rent it out. Clearly, that is the way it was being pitched," Mr. Robinson says....

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/real-est...-the-view-fromsingapore/article37882051/

PS, isn't it time the name of the thread was changed to The Butterfly?

[EastVanMark]

Originally Posted by rofina

All I can say is - thank you Westbank.

The are bringing three of the most unique towers in North America to our city - pretty blessed.

X2

Westbank is saving the city from tower after tower of incredibly boring, redundant, blandness.

[phesto]

Originally Posted by EastVanMark

X2

Westbank is saving the city from tower after tower of incredibly boring, redundant, blandness.

I must admit, the spin that Ian Gillespie has created with the interesting architecture and the further embellishment with the "Fight for Beauty" campaign has been a work of genius that has been lapped up by everyone: CofV planning, pre-sales buyers etc. It takes this kind of marketing genius to keep getting people to pay hundreds of dollars per SF above current market prices for pre-sales. It's hype that you just don't get with conventional designs and this is partially why other local developers are leagues behind Westbank when it comes to pre-sales prices. (see Onni's struggles with their 1335 Howe pre-sales). Westbank not only knows how to get people to cough up more dough, they've managed to pass it off as a public service!

Gillespie's whole shtick reminds me of this Robert California quote:

"You’ll find that customers will pay our higher prices and then they will thank us. And we will say to them, you are welcome."

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by phesto

I must admit, the spin that Ian Gillespie has created with the interesting architecture and the further embellishment with the "Fight for Beauty" campaign has been a work of genius that has been lapped up by everyone: CofV planning, pre-sales buyers etc. It takes this kind of marketing genius to keep getting people to pay hundreds of dollars per SF above current market prices for pre-sales. It's hype that you just don't get with conventional designs and this is partially why other local developers are leagues behind Westbank when it comes to pre-sales prices. (see Onni's struggles with their 1335 Howe pre-sales). Westbank not only knows how to get people to cough up more dough, they've managed to pass it off as a public service!

Gillespie's whole shtick reminds me of this Robert California quote:

"You’ll find that customers will pay our higher prices and then they will thank us. And we will say to them, you are welcome."

It's certainly creative, but not quite everyone laps it up:

..But to be perfectly frank, there is something kind of pathetic about the entire enterprise. All of this sound and fury, and landslide of money, built around what is, at best, a strung-together assemblage of random objects — an Alexander McQueen gown, a Fazioli piano, a Fred Herzog photo, all taken out of context and stuck in a pop-up tent off the side of the Fairmont Pacific Rim Hotel. The National Gallery, it is not.

On the day that I visited the exhibit, a few people were wanly drifting about. The army of attendants, all kitted up in branded T-shirts, hovered with little more to do than direct traffic and hand out audio headsets. One of the women looked me up and down as I came in. “I like to look at the fashions,” she explained. Despite the money on display, there was an air of obsequiousness, or maybe it was the Westbank-branded candles. Whatever the cause, the effect was distinctly weird. Everyone seemed a bit twitchy, like at any moment a person might snap and begin smashing all the pretty maquettes into splinters and powdered glass...

https://thetyee.ca/Culture/2017/11/14/fight-for-ugly-why-sell-condos/

As to ONNI, they might be fighting other, ahem, perceptions in the market.

[osirisboy]

Well that's from the tyee, isn't that just a bunch of bitter judgmental socialists? They wouldn't like any kind of market condo no matter what it was

For me personally westbank's image really took a hit with how they finished the telus project. Cheap! And poor quality

[officedweller]

Westbank comes across as being image conscious and superficial, in the same way that some shoppers will pay higher prices for service to make them feel better/important (i.e. rather than shopping at Costco).
But that's the segment of the market with the cash to spend.

It's like the open breezeways at The Butterfly
- I wonder how many buyers took the time to think about the consequences of that design (or even realize that they are open?)

[csbvan]

I see the whole Westbank event as embarrassing. Tacky, shallow and unfortunately too representative of Vancouver these days.

[trofirhen]

Originally Posted by csbvan

I see the whole Westbank event as embarrassing. Tacky, shallow and unfortunately too representative of Vancouver these days.

It would be great if the whole bunch of them; planners and architects, were to go on a six week work-study project in Montreal and San Francisco.
They might come back more open-minded.

[jlousa]

Originally Posted by trofirhen

It would be great if the whole bunch of them; planners and architects, were to go on a six week work-study project in Montreal and San Francisco.
They might come back more open-minded.

Wow that's insightful. Do you think that they don't earn good money and haven't traveled abroad and seen how competitors are doing things in other cities? Perhaps it works both ways and lots of them are coming here to learn... Have a proper read of the link below, I doubt it will change your opinion but maybe someone else will enjoy it.

https://www.bcbusiness.ca/How-BC-developers-are-building-the-world

[rofina]

Originally Posted by osirisboy

Well that's from the tyee, isn't that just a bunch of bitter judgmental socialists? They wouldn't like any kind of market condo no matter what it was

For me personally westbank's image really took a hit with how they finished the telus project. Cheap! And poor quality

They are the luxury option.

The Apple of development community.

The luxury option doesn't have to justify price, and typically has enough hype to sell anyway.

No different than what Apple does with iPhones.

Its no doubt Gillespies genius that positioned his company like this. Its brilliant for him, for Westbank, and it gets Vancouver 4 of the most stunning towers anywhere in the world that are not supertalls.

[Vin]

Originally Posted by jlousa

Wow that's insightful. Do you think that they don't earn good money and haven't traveled abroad and seen how competitors are doing things in other cities? Perhaps it works both ways and lots of them are coming here to learn... Have a proper read of the link below, I doubt it will change your opinion but maybe someone else will enjoy it.

https://www.bcbusiness.ca/How-BC-developers-are-building-the-world

I do think we have top notch developers, but in recent times it is the City of Vancouver planners and policies that are restricting their creativity and chance to excel. Many have since ventured across municipal boundaries or abroad to build better things. Except for a few developments (mostly by Wesbank), those that continue to build in Vancouver often produce laclustre products. Trofirhen was referring to local City planners and architects who do not seem to open up, and I do agree with him in that regards.

We may be at the forefront when we built Yaletown in the late 80s-90s, but we restricted ourselves at making the city even better for about 2 decades. Concord Pacific was the star back then, and the Yaletown concept had been exported to Toronto and Calgary. In recent years, Westbank has been creating sporadic developments in certain parts of the city, but except for the Vancouver House development (designed by a foreign architect BTW), nothing large scale with a "wow" factor is happening downtown, an area which still holds a lot of development potentials. The Concord lands at the new entertainment district is looking promising, but the area could see way better development if not for all the restrictions we have, and the fact that the newer projects are tied to the tearing down of the viaducts, which leave a bad taste in the mouth. Oakridge mall is a shining star that will create a much-needed secondary town centre in this city, and we should fully support it. Wesbank will shine again if that project takes off. If we upzone areas like Kits, West Broadway or OV, and redesign the OCPs for many Vancouver neighbourhoods, I'mm sure we can see even more developers shine in this city.

[officedweller]

Pic by me last night - the blimp was up taking shots for the marketing website.
Not sure if that was the highest elevation it went to - that's just when I noticed it.
It came down after that.

[vancouvercitizen]

Currently 4 suites for sale in 1028 Barclay.. Wonder if everyone's selling out before their views and sunlight disappear.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by vancouvercitizen

Currently 4 suites for sale in 1028 Barclay.. Wonder if everyone's selling out before their views and sunlight disappear.

There's always a lot of churn at Patina. Maybe it's popular with foreign students?

[vanman]

Haven't seen this rendering posted yet.