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Originally Posted by LeftCoaster
It was also not a success, SITQ took a beating on that tower. A lot of people lost their jobs over that debacle, certainly not something we want to emulate here in Vancouver.
And Queetz, Oxford is building their project on spec so we certainly have developers who are willing to take a gamble on this market.
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You've seen my posts in 1021 Hastings and know I have been cheering for Oxford. Even suggesting that Credit Suisse do the same for their yet to be built office tower. Be nice if Oxford owns and is building the other office tower projects. And who was the developer of PWC Place again? That was also built "with or without an anchor tenant", and yet they were handsomely rewarded for that...
Quote:
Originally Posted by s211
It wasn't guts that made them build on spec. The real reason they went spec at Eight Avenue is much more terrifying. Not sure if the real reason's ever been spilled on the web. If not, I'm not sure I want to be the one to spill the beans, but let me assure you that it wasn't because of guts that they went ahead.
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I've actually been following that particular project since 2000, and if you see an entry in Emporis about that building (or Penny Lane), it was entered by *me*....man that was such a long time ago. So I do vaguely recall something about some deadline imposed by the City of Calgary to get it built or else they have to start all over on the app.
But nevertheless, the business publications always taunt that particular project as going back to the reckelessness of the 80s, how foolish they are for building it anyway despite the impending doom of the Calgary office market at that time. They always picked on Eight Avenue Place, their favourite whipping boy, and yes, there is still some guts involved because the devs could have simply abandoned the whole process as having an empty 50 storey office building would have killed them financially. But they built it anyway, and now its full, the devs laughing themselves at the bank and for sure are taunting those know it all real estate analysts how deeply wrong they are