Latest from Aquilini combines modern, heritage and retail in three buildings

Claudia Kwan
Sun

THE MAYNARDS BLOCK

Location: Southeast False Creek, Vancouver

Project size: 253 apartments and townhouses, 3 buildings

Residence size: studios, 426 sq. ft. – 506 sq. ft.; 1 bed, 533 sq. ft. – 726 sq. ft.; 1 bed + den/solarium, 452 sq. ft. – 871 sq. ft.; 2 bed, 777 sq. ft. – 1,150 sq. ft.; 2 bed + den/solarium 851 sq. ft. – 2,809 sq. ft.; townhouses 1,040 sq. ft. – 1,838 sq. ft.

Prices: apartments $285,900 – $809,900; townhouses, $585,900 – $999,900

Developer: Aquilini Investment Group

Architect: Michelange Panzini Architectes/Buttjes Architecture Inc.

Sales centre: 415 West Second

Hours: noon – 5 p.m., Sat. -Thurs.

Telephone: 604-893-8378

Web: maynardsblock.com

Occupancy: Winter 2012

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The Maynards Block appears set up to be all things to all people. How else to describe a location that covers nearly a full city block at the south foot of Cambie Bridge and three separate buildings with heritage and modern residential, and expansive retail?

The original Maynards building was once the garage in which Telus predecessors stored repair and maintenance vehicles.

In its proposed new form, developer Aquilini Investment Group foresees an anchor tenant occupying 26,000 square feet of retail space on the first two floors. It’s in keeping with the mixed-use neighbourhood, with other large stores, including Winners, HomeSense, Home Depot, Canadian Tire, Best Buy, London Drugs, Save-On-Foods and Whole Foods, to the south, on Cambie Street. The Olympic Village Canada Line Station is 200 metres away.

Two floors of new construction will go on top of the heritage component, visibly different from the brick of the original building.

Project manager Greg Zayadi of Rennie Marketing Systems jokingly calls the 11 double-height lofts “glass boxes.”

“They have windows on both sides, top to bottom, with no internal hallway, so the front door is outside,” he says. “They’re the ultimate bachelor pads.”

Each loft will have an expansive deck, and there will be four-by-eight-foot community garden plots — 13 in all — in a common area in the back.

There are seven townhomes in the nine-storey north building. Barry Savage, Aquilini’s vice-president of development, says he expects they will appeal t0 young families who can appreciate the benefits of split-level living — sound separation comes to mind — as well as pet owners.

“On the ground floor, you can let the dog right out into the courtyard just by opening the front door,” he points out. (He says this as his own dog plays at his feet, chewing at her leash and begging for some park time.)

The west building is the largest building, at 13 storeys and 164 apartments, each with in-suite storage. Small retail spaces will line the first floor. From overhead, it’s designed to look like a fish; those at the “head” and “tail” will get wide angle views of the Olympic Village, False Creek, the North Shore mountains and Cambie Bridge. In deference to the bridge’s proximity, some of the balconies on the west side of the building will be enclosed.

(A note before we go any further — it’s impossible not to connect the Aquilini name with its premier asset, the Vancouver Canucks. There’s an insert in the sales package explaining exactly what a company best known for owning a sports team knows about the business of developing homes. Bottom line? “They’re diversified — meaning they’re stable financially — and they’re deeply committed to Vancouver,” Zayadi says.)

While the most expensive residence — a townhouse — is priced at just under $1 million, Zayadi says affordability was a big goal. Two-thirds of the units in the development are priced below $400,000, and some of those are below $300,000. Parking is included for all 253 residences.

Zayadi believes owner-occupiers will form more than half of the residents, mainly people who currently live downtown but who are pushing out to southeast False Creek in search of a little more living room.

He also thinks investors will be able to get $2 a square foot in rent; that’s similar to the rates downtown.

Sales were initially intended to start last year, but Zayadi says a decision was made to wait until after construction began this summer on another Aquilini development on Richards Street.

Waiting, he says, allowed the company to pass on construction savings in lower labour and materials costs, meaning a drop in price from the mid-$700-a-square-foot range to, on average, $600 a square foot.

With the obvious exposure benefits associated with a close proximity to the athletes’ village, why not then wait until after the 2010 Games to start selling?

“We’re not targeting high-end clientele,” says Savage. “We want to be under construction right after the Games. It’s more important to get started than to get an extra dollar from buyers. Then we can move on to the next project.”

Savage estimates the heritage aspect of Maynards added about five per cent in costs, including jackhammering out the floor in the original building, which has a five- to six-foot slope.

They also found it too expensive to put the parking garage underneath the original building, and had to redo it, placing it under the two new construction buildings.

However, since there is only expected to be the one retail tenant inside the two floors of the heritage building, they weren’t forced to do expensive renovations to accommodate HVAC – heating, ventilation and air conditioning — or piping.

Savage says city hall’s heritage commission was very clear about having the new construction look different from the original Maynards building. There is brick on all four faces of the bottom seven floors of the north building, and some on the west face of the west building, but it is of a different colour than the heritage material, as chosen by the commission. The remainder is almost entirely glass and concrete.

The residence interiors are all about the linear and contemporary. Sinks and tubs are cleanly square, with hardly a rounded corner to be found. Tiles are square or rectangular.

In the kitchen, the space-challenged will enjoy a Lazy Susan cupboard for pots and pans. The rotation gently drifts to a stop once a 360-degree turn has been completed. Cooks may mourn that there’s an electrical rather than natural gas stovetop, but Savage says whoever pays the bills will like it better. In fact, there is no natural gas in any of the buildings.

“Natural gas is monitored communally in residential buildings,” points out Savage. “Now that’s great for some people, but if you’re thrifty and energy-conscious, in many cases, you end up paying for what your neighbour uses.”

The developer has also consciously chosen not to apply for LEED Silver certification, because it didn’t want to saddle the strata council with the LEED monitoring process for a year after the building completes. Savage also says since all new buildings must meet City of Vancouver environmental requirements — essentially equivalent with LEED silver — it’s not really an additional marketing tool, and buyers are assured of the standards being met even without the certification.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Alan Zibel, AP Real Estate Writer
USA Today

WASHINGTON — Home resales rose in September to the highest level in more than two years, beating expectations, as buyers scrambled to complete their purchases before a tax credit for first-time owners expires.

The National Association of Realtors said Friday that sales rose 9.4% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.57 million in September, from a downwardly revised pace of 5.1 million in August. Sales had been expected to rise to an annual pace of 5.35 million, according to economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters.

The median sales price was $174,900, down 8.5% from a year earlier, and slightly lower than August’s median of $177,300.

“There’s a mini-boom going on in the housing market,” said Thomas Popik, who conducts a monthly survey of real estate agents for Campbell Communications, a research firm.

The inventory of unsold homes on the market fell about 7% to 3.63 million. That’s a 7.8 month supply at the current sales pace, the lowest level since March 2007. Nationwide sales are up nearly 24% from their bottom in January, but are still down 23% from four years ago.

Sales rose around the country, especially in the West, where they grew 13% from a month earlier. Foreclosure sales are booming in cities like Los Angeles, San Diego and Las Vegas.

First-time home buyers and investors are snapping up those homes and taking advantage of low mortgage rates. First-time buyers can also take advantage of a tax credit of 10% of the sales price, up to $8,000, if the sale is completed by the end of November.

The tax credit is so important to some buyers that they are adding a clause to their contracts, allowing them to back out if the sale doesn’t close by Nov. 30.

While home sales and housing construction have risen steadily after hitting bottom earlier this year, most economists believe that the worst isn’t over for home values.

Prices could see a double dip because rising unemployment is causing more foreclosures. The jobless rate, currently at 9.8% is expected to rise as high as 10.5% next year, causing more people to be unable to afford their monthly mortgage payment.

“There’s more supply that’s going to come into the marketplace,” said Stan Humphries, chief economist at real estate website Zillow.com. “That additional supply will outpace demand.”

With concerns about the housing market still prominent, Congress is considering several proposals to extend the tax credit for first-time buyers. Senators Johnny Isakson and Christopher Dodd want to extend it through June 30, and expand it to include all home buyers, at an estimated cost of $16.7 billion.

Realtors and home builders are pressing lawmakers to do so, arguing that the tax credit is crucial to get the housing market back on its feet.

“We are not there in terms of removing the consumer fear factor,” said Lawrence Yun, the Realtors’ chief economist.

One potential roadblock, however, emerged this week. There are concerns that some of the 1.5 million applications for the tax credit are fraudulent.

At a hearing on Thursday the Treasury Department’s inspector general for taxes questioned the legitimacy of some 100,000 claims for the credit, potentially including some illegal immigrants and 580 people under 18. The youngest taxpayers to apply for the credit were 4 years old.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved

Men still make more money, but when it comes to buying a house, women call the shots

Joanne Laucius
Sun

When my husband and I finished our new home, we held a party. I was proud of all the practical and luxurious touches I managed to squeeze in on our limited budget — the kitchen island with its own sink, the maple floors, the cast-iron tub and a pair of linen closets upstairs.

But cast-iron tubs and linen closets held little interest for guests of the male variety. One marched right through the kitchen without a glance and asked to see the basement.

If you’re a woman, feel free to jump in and tell your own decorating story. Women are all about the narrative, even when it comes to their feelings about their spaces.

Take the Heineken commercial that shows a pair of women swooning over a walk-in closet. There’s cheering from the other side of the room as the men discover another closet that has been converted into a beer fridge.

Or the Ikea commercial about Trevor and Anne, who have achieved marital harmony thanks to Swedish closet organization ingenuity. Trevor is smiling, too, because Anne’s 37 pairs of shoes are no longer falling on his head.

A built-in beer fridge in the bedroom might thrill a man, but it’s not going to sell a house to a woman. And just like the bumper sticker says: “If Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.”

Men might still make more money, but when it comes to home buying, it’s what appeals to women that clinches the sale.

“Men aren’t motivated to buy homes that don’t make their wives happy,” says Bridget Brennan, the CEO of Female Factor, a company that develops sales strategies to appeal to women. Most households are two-income families.

And while women used to have informal purchasing power in the past, now that they make their own incomes, the effect is a one-two punch, says Brennan, also the author of Why She Buys. Women tend to spearhead the home-search process after crunching the numbers, says Brennan.

“When you make the women happy, you make the men happy.”

It’s all about the narrative — something Ikea understands very well when it arranges furniture to form vignettes in its stores or runs a commercial about Anne and Trevor’s organizational bliss.

“Storytelling is one of the most powerful techniques for creating an emotional connection with women,” says Brennan. Women are also keenly aware of the practicalities, Brennan says.

They want clear sight lines into the backyard and the family room so they can watch the children play or do their homework while Mom cooks and sorts out a crisis at work via BlackBerry.

“The search process is exciting. Women are all about imagining the possibilities of their new life.” While a spacious foyer might have a lot of design impact, women will notice if it doesn’t have a closet, says Brennan.

“They know how their family is going to function. They are looking at the flow.”

A Canada Trust women and homeownership poll, released last March, concluded that women who independently buy a home are most interested in cost, neighbourhood and location and safety and security.

Women looking at homes are buying into the whole neighbourhood, says Brennan.

“Women aren’t just looking at the home. They’re buying into the whole community — the schools, the stores, the restaurants. You don’t live in a vacuum.”

About 43 per cent of the female homeowners in the Canada Trust poll said financial security was the best thing about homeownership, followed by having a backyard and a quiet and private space for themselves. That can range from a cosy sitting area in the master bedroom to a luxurious ensuite bathroom, says Brennan.

WARMING A WOMAN’S HEART: FEATURES TO HELP SEAL THE DEAL

It’s a smart builder who knows what to promote when appealing to women buyers. Here are six deal-clinchers for warming a woman’s heart.

1. Cooking power: In the kitchen, pantries are big, says Mary Taggart, editor-in-chief of Ottawa at Home magazine. “Luxury finishes are big, too, granite countertops, even if it is just done on the island,” she says. “In my kitchen, having two ovens was a must. I love to entertain and am the one who wants to cook every holiday meal, so incorporating the extra cooking space was essential.”

2. Sweet spas: Men see bathrooms as simply functional. Women want gorgeous bathtubs and a spa-like environment, says Taggart. “A bathroom is so much more of a retreat for women.”

3. Mandatory options: Choosing options and upgrades is one of the most exciting aspects of homebuying for women. Builders who leave a bunch of samples lying around on a table in the garage of the model home are missing out on an important part of the buying experience, says marketing consultant Bridget Brennan. “It helps capture the excitement of the buyer.”

4. Storage, storage, storage: In a bulk-buying world, women want to be sure there will be a place to stow the 28-roll package of toilet paper. “People are paying to outsource storage. That tells us that people are willing to pay for storage,” says Brennan.

5. Security plus: Women want features that make them feel safe. That includes good street lighting and lighting around the entranceway of the house. 6. Colour plus: Women have more confidence with colour than men. Brennan notes that the U.S. home-building giant Ryland embraces personalization to attract women buyers. Instead of offering three colours in a 100-house development, the company now typically offers nine to 15 colours. “Women see colour differently than men, but colour is a very personal thing, not necessarily a gender thing,” adds Taggart. “I do think women seek to personalize space with greater zest than men. Women will go to much greater effort to make a space stand out and showcase their personal taste with more strength than a man might.”

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

 

Don Cayo
Sun

Most business and residential taxpayers ended up worse off, yet a relative handful of elite B.C. businesses really did save mega-bucks this year thanks to provincial meddling with the assessments on which 2009 property tax bills were based.

But now it looks as if market forces will brutally hammer some businesses — mostly office buildings and retail outlets — when their 2010 tax bills come out. The good news, if this is what you call it, is that mostly businesses that enjoyed this year’s savings will be hit.

And the rest of us? We’ve already paid the price for Victoria’s spin and folly, as we’ve seen our 2009 tax bills nudged up a notch or two higher in order to cover the shortfall stemming from the big break for the privileged few. Now it looks as if we’ll ride the transition back to market mechanisms without much further pain.

But be assured that if, as I predict, most of us get to enjoy a relatively happy ending to this sad saga, it will be due solely to good luck. Because there’s not a hint of good management in this tale.

It started when the provincial government, alarmed by the sputtering economy and the unexpected softening of home prices, decided to pretend to do something about it. It announced that, for one year only, property owners could use either the July 2007 or the July 2008 assessment figure — whichever was lower — as the basis for their 2009 tax bill.

This sounds good if you say it fast, but in reality it’s smoke and mirrors. Property tax in any given year is a zero-sum game. Municipalities decide how much money they want, then divide by the total tax base to figure out the tax rate. If one property owner saves money by getting a lower assessment, then others pay more — it’s as simple as that.

And that is what happened.

For some of us — for example, most condo owners in Vancouver — our 2007 assessment was just a few percentage points lower than the 2008. For higher-end homes and many businesses, the difference was a little a greater, although still not huge. But for a few business properties — mainly the high-end office towers — the savings were very large.

Of course almost everyone chose the 2007 figure, because it was almost always lower. But most of us didn’t save any money. When our municipalities added up the total value of assessed property, the figure was quite a bit lower than it would have been if they’d used the 2008 assessments. So the tax rate worked out to be quite a bit higher — and the total amount of money they extracted from our pockets and purses remained exactly what it would have been if the government had left well enough alone.

What did change, of course, is the proportion of the total that each taxpayer had to pay. If your 2007 and 2008 assessed values were static or nearly so, the proportion you had to pay actually rose. And if 2007 was a lot lower than 2008 — in other words, if your property was recession-proof and still rising in value — you would then pay a smaller proportion. You’d save money, possibly quite a lot.

When this year’s tax bills came out I documented how, in a year when Vancouver’s spending rose six per cent, the tax bills for several office towers — buildings whose value continued to soar despite the recession — actually dropped by six-figure sums (by $500,000 in the case of the TD Bank building on Georgia). Meanwhile, the bills for businesses in more modest blocks were consistently higher, some as much as 15 per cent higher. Increases for homeowners tended to be a bit lower.

B.C. Assessment is still calculating July 2009 assessment values — the basis for next year’s tax bills. But my analysis of real estate prices suggests what the trends will be.

According to figures from the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, the average home price — condos, attached or detached — was on a steady upward curve in July 2007. It peaked around July 2008, and by July 2009 was rebounding from a low point a few months before. Thus the July 2009 value is roughly halfway between the values of the previous two years, meaning the likely change in the 2010 assessed values won’t be great.

Ditto for many businesses, especially industrial properties, according to figures compiled for me by Shawna Rogowski, the director of research at Colliers International.

But for some business properties — mainly large retail spaces and some office space — prices have, despite the recession, gone relentlessly up. That means the 2008 assessment values, which were never the basis for a tax bill but remain on the books as the starting point for the latest assessment, are quite a bit higher than 2007 figures. And the 2009 prices are quite a bit higher than the year before.

This means you can expect assessments for these kinds of properties to rise sharply at a time when others do not much more than hold their own. So the proportion of the total tax bill falling to the owners or renters of these properties will soar — I’m guessing 50 per cent or more in many cases.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun