Today, Vancouver’s Olympic Village is a bustling, trendy community along the shores of False Creek.
But the Village got a rough start, as a white elephant for the City of Vancouver.
The development has been plagued with problems since the beginning.
The project ended up costing the city hundreds of millions of dollars.
Now a deal has been made to sell dozens of the market rental apartments to a Canadian investment group.
In addition, sales of the remaining condos have been brisk.
Out of the 737 condos that the receiver earmarked for sale over a year ago, there are just 80 left.
“We are close to 90 per cent sold now,” says Bob Rennie of Rennie Marketing Systems.
“We are really happy on the revenue side, and it’s good news for the Vancouver taxpayer.”
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The Olympic Village was originally green lighted by the NPA council of the day.
In the midst of the world financial crisis, the developer* went into receivership and the financier bailed.
Taxpayers inherited a $1 billion debt when the City of Vancouver assumed the Olympic Village.
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Today, revenues on Rennie’s sales are close to $600 million.
“They’re in a hell of a lot better position that they were when we launched this February 11, and in a better position than we were 14 months ago,” says Rennie.
To add to the optimism, there’s been another big real estate sale at the Olympic Village.
119 rental units have been bought in bulk by Bentall Kennedy, who owns and manages a stable of office and rental buildings across North America worth $29 billion.
The sale knocks $42 million off the city’s debt.
“People said we were one billion dollars in the hole, and we’d never sell a unit,” says Vancouver city councillor Kerry Jang. “Here we are, 90 per cent of the units sold, 100 per cent of all commercial space leased and we got another $41.5 million towards the debt today – that’s good news.”
“Looking at the Olympic Village as an overall development, it’s really hard for me to see how the city is ever going to make money on this,” says Tsur Sommerville of the UBC Sauder School of Business.
“It would take good news from heaven in abundance.”
It’s still doubtful the city will be able to break even on the Olympic Village.
88 market units and 26 rental units are still for sale, starting at $480,000.
The city still owes about $300 million on the Village, in 2010 dollars.
To read the receiver’s report, click here
*corrected from video version of this story. The contractors for the Olympic Village were never in receivership or financial trouble.
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