Good morning and welcome to your edition of Sunrise. |
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Massive Surrey condo project placed into receivership over $85-million debt
The B.C. Supreme Court has placed Surrey’s 1,032-unit District NW condo project under receivership, halting construction despite 90 per cent of units being pre-sold and $78 million in deposits collected since the development was approved in 2020.
Context: The developer, Thind Properties, had failed to make its monthly mortgage payments starting in May of this year, according to an application filed last month by lender KingSett Mortgage Corp. KingSett claims it is owed more than $85 million, with interested continuing to accrue at $31,661 per day.
• KingSett tried to work with Thind, giving the developer a chance to “restructure its financial affairs in a manner that would allow them to meet their obligations,” KingSett’s executive-director of loan and portfolio management Daniel Pollack wrote in an affidavit filed in court last month.
• In an affidavit filed Nov. 7, Thind Properties CEO Daljit Thind wrote that his company had spent more than $26 million on the project so far in development permit and municipal fees and was “poised to proceed with construction,” expecting a building permit before the end of 2024.
What they're saying: “Somehow, this project has gone bad,” said Tom Davidoff, director of the University of B.C.’s Sauder School of Business centre for urban economics and real estate. “This used to be a project that worked economically, and now it doesn’t.”
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WestJet explains why B.C. couple re-routed into 72-hour trip home from Las Vegas after flight cancelled
Getting home after a quick trip to Las Vegas almost turned into a multi-day odyssey through four states and provinces for a couple from Terrace.
Andrew Korchacov, 44, and his 42-year-old wife, left their home in the west-central B.C. city on Monday, Nov. 4, on a WestJet flight for a week in Vegas. They planned to return the following Sunday, with a late-night flight from Vegas to Vancouver, and then a second leg the next day into Terrace. They’d be home in plenty of time to get to work on Tuesday.
It didn’t turn out that way. READ MORE |
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• At 1:55 p.m. today, a test of the National Public Alerting System will take place. The test is meant to ensure members of the public can receive important alerts in an emergency. The test alert will be sent through to all compatible cellphones, and will appear on radio and TV broadcasts.
• Foreign investment has boosted job growth in B.C., with a 46 per cent increase in jobs at foreign-owned companies since 2016, driven by sectors like biotech, software, and gaming, according to Invest Vancouver. U.S. firms lead in job creation, but Swedish companies have seen the fastest growth, contributing to B.C.'s economy through high-skilled employment and local business expansion.
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“We don’t know when he’ll be back.” |
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Tegan Hill: Eby government must reduce taxes to help revitalize B.C. economy
Following the NDP government’s re-election, Premier David Eby’s new cabinet has been sworn in. Their first priority? Well, it should be tax reductions and spending cuts.
B.C.’s GDP per person, a key measure of the economy and living standards, will shrink by a projected two per cent in both 2023 and 2024. In fact, GDP per person is essentially the same today as it was six years ago.
Moreover, governments account for nearly all job creation in the province since 2019. Indeed, from 2019 to 2023, private-sector employment in B.C. increased by just 12,000 jobs while the number of government jobs — provincial, federal and local — in the province increased by 102,100.
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Kitsilano pub Darby's closing to make way for six-storey rental building
Darby's, the iconic pub in Kitsilano, is closing to make room for a six-storey building with rental apartments and ground-floor commercial space.
Driving the news: The pub, on the southwest corner of West 4th Avenue and Macdonald Street, is not likely to return, but its adjoining liquor store will have a space in the mixed-use development proposed by Hungerford Properties.
• If approved by the city, construction of the 60,000-square-foot building will begin in the summer of 2026 and should be complete within two years.
You should know: Darby's pub was built in 1979 and owned and operated by developer Terry Lightheart, a descendant of the Lightheart family that built many apartment buildings across Vancouver between 1901 and 1931. Several of these remain, including the seven-storey Brookland Court at Seymour and Helmcken streets, and the seven-storey Strathmore Lodge at Bute and Comox streets.
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THE NEW YORK TIMES CROSSWORD |
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