Council proposal calls for fewer condo towers and revised height limits

Christina Montgomery
Province

The report calls on council to push commercial space in Yaletown. RIC ERNST FILE PHOTO – THE PROVINCE

Faced with a continuing shortage of office space in Vancouver‘s downtown core, the city hopes to increase office-building density, pull residential zoning from areas and push commercial space in Yaletown.

Council will vote Tuesday on sending the plan out for public consultation, which is likely to provoke debate on its proposal to lift height restrictions in some areas and ban new condos in others.

The move is the final step in several years’ work to grapple with the effect of skyrocketing residential prices that have pushed developers to build condo towers in the downtown core rather than office buildings.

This summer, Barclay Street Real Estate’s second-quarter report indicated there were just 400,000 square feet of vacant space included in the 19.4-million square feet of space it monitors in downtown buildings.

The privately owned real-estate broker said the figure represented a 2.06-per-cent vacancy rate — although leasing was expected to pick up by year’s end and bring the figure down to 1.1 per cent.

At the time, other Vancouver-based commercial realtors were less optimistic. Colliers International, which monitors a larger area of the downtown core, estimated vacancy at 1.7 per cent.

A staff report going to council Tuesday notes that the city has been working for several years to promote and preserve “job space.”

The report — which doesn’t mention the sharp international economic downturn of the past month — says there is a “potential shortfall of potential between the amount of job space available under current zoning and the future demand for job space.”

It is not clear how the picture will change should a slowdown in the economy delay construction of many of the projects now under way or commercial activity in general.

The plan’s proposed policy and zoning changes, combined with the job-space potential in northeast False Creek and the central waterfront, “will meet the potential job-space deficit of 5.8 million square feet in the downtown peninsula,” the report says.

It suggests:

– Immediately creating additional job-space capacity through rezoning, because developers can then get faster approvals through the development permit process;

– Requiring new developments in more downtown areas to provide at least a minimum of non-residential space;

– Retaining the commercial capacity of Yaletown by allowing new commercial buildings to be built to the full permitted density of mixed-use buildings and by introducing a minimum commercial-density requirement for all new buildings and heritage revitalization projects;

– Increasing the potential for commercial capacity in the downtown core by allowing non-residential buildings to reach heights and densities up to the “view cones” that the city’s view-corridor policy sets out. Sites without view cones could go higher;

– Dealing with an expected growth in transit use by workers in the new areas by pushing for investment in downtown transit services.

© The Vancouver Province 2008

Sales for year also expected to decline

Katie Mercer
Province

Prices in B.C.’s housing market will plummet by 18 per cent over the next two years due to the international credit crisis, according to a report released yesterday.

“A poor economic outlook for 2009 and tight credit conditions extending into the next year will keep housing sales on a downward trajectory for several more months,” said Helmut Pastrick, chief economist for Central 1 Credit Union.

Since March, B.C.’s house prices have dropped by 12 per cent. The report projects that 2008 house sales will fall by as much as 30 per cent between January and December.

With the current credit crisis, house prices are expected to fall another 13 per cent in 2009, bringing the median sales price down to $310,000. The report predicts the annual median price will fall to $294,000 before bottoming out in 2010.

The construction of new homes will tumble by 37 per cent as unit sales levels continue to hit multi-year lows while market listings are at a multi-year high, says the report.

Since August 2007, monthly sales are off by about 40 per cent and could continue a downward spiral to 60 per cent. The decline would be the steepest since the 1981-82 recession, the report concludes.

“It was not until August 2007, when the first wave of the financial crisis drove mortgage rates higher, that sales turned sharply lower,” the report states. “Subsequent shock waves from the financial and credit markets, along with deteriorating economic conditions, exacerbated the sales decline.”

Short-term market conditions will continue to be weak as long as the number of residential listings rise, pushing prices lower and throwing off the supply-demand market balance, the report said.

“Everything went sky-high a while ago,” said Iolanda Esposito, a realtor with Re/Max in Vancouver. “So now it has to adjust and fall. It will probably go a bit flat, and then people will be back to buying and selling like crazy.”

© The Vancouver Province 2008

Developer is considering a change in design, condo marketer says

Bruce Constantineau
Sun

Construction of the $500-million-plus downtown Vancouver Ritz-Carlton hotel-condo project has been suspended so the developer can consider redesigning it, project condo marketer Bob Rennie said Tuesday.

“[Developer] Simon Lim has notified our office that he has suspended construction pending a redesign of the parkade,” he said in an interview.

Excavation work at the 1133 West Georgia site began about four months ago, but was halted recently as Lim decides whether to excavate another floor or redesign the parkade for hotel and commercial parking.

“Given construction prices today, everybody is looking at everything they can to be prudent,” Rennie said.

He said Lim can’t re-evaluate parking for the project’s 123 luxury condos because they require a set number of parking spaces.

A 127-room Ritz-Carlton hotel is supposed to occupy the first 20 floors of a new 58-storey Arthur Erickson-designed twisting tower that was scheduled for completion by early 2011.

Luxury condos — at prices ranging from $1.4 million to $13 million — will take up the top 38 floors.

Rennie said just over half of the 123 condos have been sold, with the most recent sale taking place about 60 days ago.

He said buyers are understandably nervous now because financial problems have forced delays and uncertainty at some Metro Vancouver condo projects.

The $350-million Infinity project in Surrey, which attracted 560 pre-sale buyers, is on hold because its major U.S.-based investor recently went bankrupt.

“Given what’s happened at Infinity and given what’s happening in financial markets, everybody’s radar is really, really alert so the tougher questions are being asked,” Rennie said.

He noted skeptics often claimed the Shangri-La hotel-condo development in downtown Vancouver would not proceed, but it is nearing completion, with the hotel set to open early next year.

“So we have to let this developer go though his growing pains, too,” Rennie said.

He said Lim still plans to open the new development in 2011.

Lim’s Holborn Group bought the West Georgia property from Cadillac Fairview about four years ago. The site had been a vacant and derelict eyesore for more than a decade following failed attempts to build a private members’ club and a strata-title office building.

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

Redesign, not money flow, is responsible, developer says

Wendy Mclellan
Province

The 60-storey hotel and condo project was set to open in 2011

It was supposed to bring Manhattan to downtown Vancouver: a luxury Ritz-Carlton hotel with a twisting glass tower of high-priced condos above, topped with a huge $28-million penthouse.

Today, the future of the $500-million development looks uncertain.

The construction site at 1133 West Georgia was quiet yesterday and all advertising for the development was gone.

The site was boarded up, the nearby sales centre was closed, and no one answered the phone.

Calls to the developer, the Vancouver-based Holborn Group, were not returned. The privately held company is owned by local entrepreneur Simon Lim, who bought the property several years ago from Cadillac-Fairview.

Lim told CBC News yesterday that financial concerns were not behind the site’s shut down on Friday.

He said the project has been suspended so that design changes can be made to the parkade. The sales office is still open, he added, noting that it’s now by appointment-only.

Designed by renowned Vancouver architect Arthur Erickson, the site, which has been a vacant eyesore for more than a decade, was slated to become a 127-room hotel below 123 luxury condos priced between $2.5 million and $10 million.

It was to be ready for occupancy in 2011. The building would be managed by Ritz-Carlton and condo owners would have access to hotel amenities such as valet parking and room service.

Condo sales company Rennie Marketing Systems, which is selling the suites at the Ritz-Carlton as well as the soaring Shangri-La development across the street, did not return calls yesterday.

The condominium units are reportedly 50 per cent presold and buyers are being told that the suspension is because of a redesign.

© The Vancouver Province 2008