120 buyers will get deposits back in troubled times
Derrick Penner
Sun
With condominium sales skidding to a halt, Wall Financial Corp. has decided to scrap its 414-unit Wall Centre False Creek condominium project in favour of building rental apartments on the site, company principal Peter Wall said in an interview.
In its last quarterly financial results, Wall Financial said it had sold almost 30 per cent of the Wall Centre Creek’s units, 120 in all, but that sales had come “to almost a complete stop” during the quarter.
Wall said the 120 buyers who signed up for the False Creek project, adjacent to the Olympic Athletes’ Village site, will get their deposits back while the company redesigns the project as rentals.
And the company said it won’t contemplate starting pre-sales for any new projects over the next three quarters, according to the management’s discussion and analysis statement accompanying its third-quarter financial report.
“We were a bit spoiled,” Wall said of Vancouver‘s condominium market. “[Condominiums] were just going out the door before.”
“Now I think the market for condos has been satisfied, for the present anyway, but the demand for rentals is very strong. So we thought we’d just switch to rentals.”
Wall said it wouldn’t take long to make the adjustment, but because of security restrictions for the Olympics, it would not be able to start construction until after the Games in early 2010.
In the management discussion and analysis of its last quarter’s financial results, Wall Financial said the slowdown in apartment sales caused it to halt sales on another project, its redevelopment of the building at 1212 Howe.
Wall Financial sold 109 of 150 units in the strata-titled 1212 Howe Street building, but said it would retain ownership of the remaining 41 units until the market improves.
Wall Financial is building the Wall Centre Richmond and the Capitol Residences building in downtown Vancouver. It also operates two hotels, including the Sheraton Wall Centre, as well as holding a number of rental apartments.
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