SkyCity Centre Winnipeg | 45F | 575 Ft | 175.26 M | Cancelled

[Finessing]

Originally Posted by Wolf13

IThis is what I'm thinking...

How does Fortress benefit from paying for land, paying for more land, paying for demolition, and leaving?

I would only assume, and hope, that it services a genuine highrise tower.

You need to understand that Fortress is not a developer. They raise money by selling syndicated mortgages to unsophisticated investors. They aren't putting their own skin in the game, they are lending other people's money to developers. They make their fee of the top so they have already took their pound of flesh out of this project.

But the suit doesn’t just allege that Fortress and its partners, including a network of brokers, misrepresented the risks. It claims investors were also kept in the dark about how, exactly, the nearly $17 million raised for the Collier Centre was being used and how much Fortress was keeping for itself. The suit says Fortress’s agreements with developers call for “advance payments to Fortress of ‘anticipated profits’ at the time financing is raised. This results in a substantial portion of an investor’s money (approximately 35 per cent) being retained by Fortress as anticipated profits (before any profits are actually earned),” according to the suit. Some of that money, the suit says, was used to pay broker and agent commissions, which ran as high as 15 per cent. Similarly, the suit alleges additional funds are held back by Fortress so it could be used to pay investors interest on their loans. “They took an interest reserve, so they were basically paying them back with their own money,” says Sherkin, the lawyer.

In the end, the suit alleges, less than 50 per cent of the funds raised from investors actually went toward the development.

http://www.macleans.ca/economy/angry-inv...le-seller-of-risky-syndicated-mortgages/

[bomberjet]

Originally Posted by TimeFadesAway

HSC Women's

Ah yes, the road collapse and fire project! Great track record haha lawsuit, issues, more lawsuits. Fit right in with Fortress.

[Jets4Life]

Originally Posted by Riverman

This is how fucked up Winnipeg is. Someone from Centreventure not understanding why or how a crooked orginization is skirting downtown demolition rules. Holy shit.

Fortress: We are going to demolish the St. Regis.
Centreventure: Do you have a development plan in place and financing to back it?
Fortress: yeaaahh wee doo. I think so.

St. Regis is demolished.

Centreventure: When will the development begin?
Fortress: We will let you know after, uh, after we get permits, when uh, after, uh Capital Pointe is finished.

SURPRISE! Discount parking here!

^This.

[TimeFadesAway]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

Ah yes, the road collapse and fire project! Great track record haha lawsuit, issues, more lawsuits. Fit right in with Fortress.

The fire was across the street at the Diagnostic Imaging Centre, a Bockstael project (although it was some kid who set the fire and nothing to do with the construction company). While the fire delayed things, there were no company related construction delays on that project.

But, yeah.

[bomberjet]

Oh okay. I couldn't remember. Just seemed fitting. I'm sure Ellis Don is just as good as any of the other large contractors. They're all in it to make money, not be nice guys.

[esquire]

^ Ellis Don is a heavy hitter, but they aren't as rooted in Manitoba as some other big players like PCL. They sure had to deal with a big mess with the Winnipeg airport terminal, though... I'm not sure how that one ended up but there were definitely some big lawsuits coming out of that project.

[Authentic_City]

Originally Posted by Roger Strong

Exactly! Look at the Fort Garry Place parkade, with it's "old world" exterior complete with concrete statues made from moulds of statues found on old German castles!

Why is everyone looking at me like that?

Never mind.

Like this...

[bomberjet]

Originally Posted by esquire

^ Ellis Don is a heavy hitter, but they aren't as rooted in Manitoba as some other big players like PCL. They sure had to deal with a big mess with the Winnipeg airport terminal, though... I'm not sure how that one ended up but there were definitely some big lawsuits coming out of that project.

Ya I'm not sure where the lawsuits ended up with the airport. Lawsuits aren't uncommon in large construction projects.

[CoryB]

Originally Posted by Riverman

This is how fucked up Winnipeg is. Someone from Centreventure not understanding why or how a crooked orginization is skirting downtown demolition rules. Holy shit.

Fortress: We are going to demolish the St. Regis.
Centreventure: Do you have a development plan in place and financing to back it?
Fortress: yeaaahh wee doo. I think so.

St. Regis is demolished.

Centreventure: When will the development begin?
Fortress: We will let you know after, uh, after we get permits, when uh, after, uh Capital Pointe is finished.

SURPRISE! Discount parking here!

To be fair Centreventure is pretty good at messing up projects all on their own with any assistance from Fortress. Just look at the mess with the WCC and the former Carlton Inn site. They even demolished that before they had someone, officially, lined up to do anything with the site.

[jmt18325]

already covered.

[Jack1983]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

Ah yes, the road collapse and fire project! Great track record haha lawsuit, issues, more lawsuits. Fit right in with Fortress.

Not to relieve Ellis Don of the debacle of HSC Woman's but the road collapse was actually PCL. They were the contractor responsible for the excavation and shoring on that job.

[TimeFadesAway]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

Oh okay. I couldn't remember. Just seemed fitting. I'm sure Ellis Don is just as good as any of the other large contractors. They're all in it to make money, not be nice guys.

To be clear, my "but, yeah" statement was agreeing with you.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by CoryB

To be fair Centreventure is pretty good at messing up projects all on their own with any assistance from Fortress. Just look at the mess with the WCC and the former Carlton Inn site. They even demolished that before they had someone, officially, lined up to do anything with the site.

In fairness to Centreventure, even though the process was kind of ugly, the end result will be pretty good once the Sutton Place towers get built on that site.

Now that CV has more or less fully transitioned from marketer of surplus City properties (literally that's what they did 15 years ago) to large-scale development promoter, I wonder if they need to up their game in terms of having more expertise on staff... there are only 4 staff members listed on their website, and so far as I can tell they're all planners by training. I wonder if they need to round out their skill set by adding some kind of business whiz who can parse financial statements in their sleep. CV is good at establishing a vision, but they might need some practical help in getting deals done to have that vision realized.

[bomberjet]

Originally Posted by TimeFadesAway

To be clear, my "but, yeah" statement was agreeing with you.

haha ya got that. Just figured I'd give them a break since I got my info wrong.

[Wolf13]

Originally Posted by esquire

^ I don't generally take issue with your description of parkades, but I have to quibble with your praise of the Grain Exchange Parkade. To get that thing built, Marwest demolished a well-kept, occupied building which was hardly "derelict":



And replaced it with this godawful mess:



Apart from being hideous, it's also tiny (which means it will probably be outgrown soon and require another parkade down the line), and it's practically designed to take up as much room as possible... it's well away from the Grain Exchange itself, and it sprawls out to infect two city streets. Amazingly, it looks even worse on the McDermot side than it does on the Lombard side shown above.

The funny thing is the parkade is so far from the building they could have probably left the little annex building standing and built the parkade anyway. Oh well.

This is not the example I'd use for positive parkade developments.

Having been in that unviable, derelict building that was not heritage designated, and unleased for years, I'd disagree. Sure, it was well kept enough to present decently, but was not a good space at all. This wasn't like the St. Regis which still was operating. It required substantial investment and was hurting the Grain Exchange, a far superior and historically critical asset.

You have to consider a developer or landowner's view... sure, we all have preferred uses of land but it isn't ours. They still have bills to pay and money to make, while helping their tenants thrive.

The other reason the annex was an issue is because it took away any considerable capacity for loading, which I already mentioned. These practicalities are entirely necessary and may sound like cynical "greedy" things to outsiders who can afford to be romantic about these things because it's not their money. They couldn't attract tenants because of loading issues. You can't ask for a reasonable rent without offering these features.

Maybe we all have a preference in terms of taste, but nobody can fault Artis for trying to build something that did not advertise "parkade" in the typical wpg sense. I will also point out the Annex was uglier. This type of complaining about the parkade's appearance reminds me how the WOC isn't "outlet" enough for all the elitists who forget we don't have an outlet, much how Winnipeggers do not realize how much goes into operating a huge, old building like the grain exchange and attracting tenants. If this isn't atleast "good enough" for Winnipeggers, what it? I know, not the Centrepoint parkade... nothing is.

For anyone who can imagine what it's like, or relate to having skin in the game, this was a no brainer and not in a cynical way at all.

[Bluenote]

Originally Posted by esquire

In fairness to Centreventure, even though the process was kind of ugly, the end result will be pretty good once the Sutton Place towers get built on that site.

Now that CV has more or less fully transitioned from marketer of surplus City properties (literally that's what they did 15 years ago) to large-scale development promoter, I wonder if they need to up their game in terms of having more expertise on staff... there are only 4 staff members listed on their website, and so far as I can tell they're all planners by training. I wonder if they need to round out their skill set by adding some kind of business whiz who can parse financial statements in their sleep. CV is good at establishing a vision, but they might need some practical help in getting deals done to have that vision realized.

You sound like lilwayne now. With the Sutton towers promise.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by Bluenote

You sound like lilwayne now. With the Sutton towers promise.

You may think I'm being a bafoon, but I have faith in TN and its partners to deliver on this

[Biff]

Originally Posted by esquire

^ Ellis Don is a heavy hitter, but they aren't as rooted in Manitoba as some other big players like PCL. They sure had to deal with a big mess with the Winnipeg airport terminal, though... I'm not sure how that one ended up but there were definitely some big lawsuits coming out of that project.

Ellis Don was about to bail on Winnipeg last year even after signing on with the SkyCity project. I think SkyCity was looking fairly grim so they were preparing to wind things down when Edenshaw came aboard. Things have clearly changed. Now they have reversed ship and are preparing to put out trade pricing in early fall.

[Urban recluse]

Thanks Buff--I mean Biff.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by Biff

Ellis Don was about to bail on Winnipeg last year even after signing on with the SkyCity project. I think SkyCity was looking fairly grim so they were preparing to wind things down when Edenshaw came aboard. Things have clearly changed. Now they have reversed ship and are preparing to put out trade pricing in early fall.

I'd like to have been a fly on the wall at their management team meeting when the subject of their frustrations with the Winnipeg market came up