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Olympic Village’s 15 building Project nearing completion

2009-09-10 · Les Twarog & Sonja Pedersen

Malcolm Parry
Sun

Security specialists will soon have South False Creek's 15-building, 1.4-million-square-foot Olympic Athletes' Village complex buttoned up tighter than an ant catcher's pants. And that could be earlier than expected -- or feared. City- appointed project overseer Bruce Tidball was on site Tuesday, along with Vanoc's villages development director Mark Cutler, and project developer Millennium Properties' general manager Hank Jasper. Millennium's co-principal Peter Malek was on-site, too. So was Bob Rennie, who on May 15, 2010, will begin an Avenues Of The World blitz to sell the remaining 472 units of the 737 for which his Rennie Marketing Systems firm is responsible. Their total value, in a project now named Millennium Water, was earlier stated to be $1.1 billion. Ten invited designers will ready units for buyers' inspection, Rennie said.

Tidball, Cutler and Jasper were present for the purpose of okaying occupancy for the southwesterly village structure known as Parcel Two. Some 80,000 square-feet of commercial space was handed over Aug. 1, two months ahead of schedule. With Tuesday's doings, and more to follow on the other buildings, it appears that the whole complex will be wrapped before expected, too.

Peter and brother Shahram Malek paid an unprecedented $193 million for the seven-hectare site. Across False Creek, it faces Expo 86's former 82.5-hectare site which the B.C. government sold to Li Ka-shing for $145 million. The Maleks' costs were mitigated, however, by an estimated $60-million worth of seawall and ornamental wall-and-paving work undertaken by the city.

With the recession lifting, one wonders what Rennie will realize for the 66 units, sized 1,800 to 3,900 square feet, in the two buildings designed by the late Arthur Erickson with Larry Doyle and Nick Milkovich. Releasing May 15, a single-floor, north-facing penthouse should top $10 million. The Erickson complex is already unofficially named Canada House. "Or rich peoples' house," Rennie salesman Michael Braun said. "And not necessarily Canadian."

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