Athletes Village Profile

On November 9th, 2008, we made recommendations to pass on condo purchases at the Vancouver Olympic Athlete's Village.

http://canadapacificrealestate.blogspot.com/2008/11/impact-of-athletes-village-on-market.html

Today, one local newspaper ran a headline that the City of Vancouver might be on the hook for $1billion in backstops to the athlete's village. The headline is very deceiving. If the city does have to provide $1 billion in credit back-up to the village, it would realize or end up owning the entire project, which would likely be worth somewhere between $600 million to $750 million. The city would have to sell off the assets to recover cash, and there would be a shortfall which might creep up to $400 million. And there would likely be some sort of work-out take place in which an additional building becomes not-for-profit housing, and another building becomes a condo-hotel.

In the meantime, there are virtually no reported sales at the village construction site. We did do a site visit this week. Our only concern is the absence of infrastructure improvement in the area: no school capacity increases, an absence of parking, no additional policing plans etc.

We continue to recommend passing on the project.