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Originally Posted by fenwick16
Thanks for posting. It would be good to see it straightened out. I didn't really like the twisting aspect of the proposal and it would just add cost needlessly.
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I think that was just a play on words for the title. I doubt that the twist is actually gone from the towers. I can't really understand how he will "knock our socks off" without having to change the development agreement, but I do like surprises!
Here is the full article.
Straightening out plan for Twisted Sisters
Developer ‘committed’ to downtown residential project
By CHRIS LAMBIE Business Editor
Thu, Oct 21 - 4:53 AM
Navid Saberi, president of United Gulf Developments Ltd., says there will be a development at the former Tex-Park site in downtown Halifax, it just won’t be the originally planned Twisted Sisters. (Ted Pritchard / Staff)
Don’t count the Twisted Sisters project proposed for downtown Halifax out just yet, unless, that is, developer Navid Saberi gets a proposal worthy of The Godfather.
"I’m not going to sell it unless somebody gives me an offer that I can’t refuse," Saberi, the president of United Gulf Developments Ltd., said Wednesday.
The 27-storey twin tower slated for the old Tex-Park site on the corner of Hollis and Sackville streets was called into question last week when city staffers released a report indicating that the project had dragged on past the construction start date in the development agreement. But the report pointed out council could extend the deadline.
"We are going to do a project there, for sure," Saberi said.
"Instead of just going in and asking for an extension, we just want to come up with a better idea of how we’re going to do it and when we’re going to do it. And then we go and ask for that timeline."
The original design, first proposed more than five years ago, may need some tweaking, he said.
"What I’m going to do, it will, what’s the saying? Knock your socks off," Saberi said.
In April, he said construction would start next fall. On Wednesday, he was far more nebulous about the timeline.
"We have a few options that we are looking at. We haven’t decided which option we’re going to take yet."
He was equally vague about how much the project will cost.
"It’s around a couple of hundred million."
When asked if he is tempted to sell the lot, Saberi said: "You’d need to have deep pockets to buy that site. But we’re very committed. It’s one of the projects that actually we’re excited to do."
Saberi said his company is not entertaining a sale of the property.
"When you don’t want to sell something, you can’t put a price on it.
"We think it’s one of the best sites in Halifax."
He doesn’t believe Rank Inc.’s proposal to build a convention centre, hotel and office space on the former Chronicle Herald site will hurt the chance of success for United Gulf’s project, informally dubbed the Twisted Sisters for the shape of its glass and steel towers.
"My project is 70 per cent residential (condominiums) and 30 per cent hotel and retail. So what they do is offices and hotels, and really they have no effect on what we do."
He plans a 120-room boutique hotel in the project with a "very contemporary feel."
United Gulf is also planning to start construction next spring on its second phase of the $65-million Waterton condominium complex on Walter Havill Drive. The next 150 condominium units should be completed by the end of 2012, Saberi said.
The first tower is 70 per cent sold, he said. Saberi plans to start selling condominiums in the second tower at the same time he starts building it.
His company is working on two Hammonds Plains projects.
It is planning to build more than 300 homes and an equestrian centre at Voyageur Lakes.
"We have done about 100 of it already," he said, noting that the average home in the $130-million development sells for about $500,000.
"We’ve been at it for the last four years and it probably will go on for another four years."
United Gulf has also built 30 townhouses in Glen Arbour and intends to build another 30, he said.
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