Quote:
Originally Posted by King&James
Transfer convo here...
how is it Vrancor can go full 🞵🞵🞵🞵 a'blazing on multiple sites , while others (seemingly well financed -many names here), are just sitting on sidelines, some with renders, and others with prime sites (KW/James N, Gore Park frontage -Robinsons/RBC site, south leg...). Have not found anything on Bentall Green Oak , but their site at Main/Caroline they dropped $20M on , you would think would be digging a hole in.
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Most likely? he's more willing to move forward on lower margins.
Vrancor also tends to build super cheap and cut a corner whenever possible to make a dime.
Bentall Green Oak is moving forward on their site, they have an active site plan application they submitted a few months ago. It takes a bit of time to get that approved (typically about a year, regardless of if you are in Hamilton or elsewhere in the province).
Hamilton's issue is that it is still a relatively affordable market, with high development costs that come with complicated downtown sites (providing parking becomes difficult, shoring is more expensive, less efficient layouts to accommodate tight site conditions, etc). Makes it challenging to make large developments work financially. That is the real reason stuff doesn't happen, not a slow moving city hall.
This has only recently started to change. The reason Hamilton is suddenly experiencing a boom in development proposals is because rents have skyrocketed these past few years. It's suddenly profitable to build apartment buildings as rents are now high enough to support the cost of new construction.
Also, because of these low margins, you get a lot of inexperienced developers looking to make an entry into the market. A lot of Hamilton's proposals have historically been made by groups like this. No real development experience or limited access to capital, making it much more likely they will manage to start construction. Again, nothing to do with City Hall.
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