Iranian expat develops $92-million eco-friendly townhome-and-tower complex
Malcolm Parry
Sun
MOHAMMED ESFAHANI was already considered a class act in the late 1980s. That’s when, as a Tehran expatriate with a master’s degree in civil engineering, he worked as a development manager for Kassem Aghtai’s Fama Holdings here.
Among his responsibilities then were the Discovery and Admiralty at Howe Street‘s southern end. Now, as an independent developer with cousin and mechanical engineer Roger Navabi as his partner, he’s broken ground kitty-corner to those projects on his biggest job to date.
It’s the $92-million, 180,000-square foot townhome-and-tower complex, the latter element so designed that all units are located on corners.
On completion, it should receive LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification for such claimed characteristics as reducing water-consumption and storm-drain runoff, and for employing geothermal heating and cooling to reduce pollutant gas emissions by 184 tonnes annually.
Such environmental benefits add close to three per-cent to the project’s cost, Esfahani said — a sum marginally offset by Ottawa‘s corresponding grant of $60,000.
Esfahani’s biggest gigs before this were the $46-million, 140,000-square-foot Domus and the $30-million, 90,000-square-foot Alda — both in Yaletown.
But another inner-city project he launched last fall shows a different direction for Esfahani. It’s the $38-million, 145,000-square-foot Stella complex rising in Calgary‘s Connaught area.
“Calgary is becoming like Vancouver was 10 to 15 years ago,” said Esfahani. “People are just beginning to appreciate living downtown.”
They are not, however, yet ready to pay $1,100 per square foot for penthouses, as Pomaria’s fetched before the project’s excavation was completed.
Then again, land in Calgary wouldn’t cost $12 million. As a consolidation, the city wouldn’t sell its part of the Pomaria site to anyone who hadn’t assembled all the remaining lots. “So we had to pay very dear for some of them, Esfahani said ruefully.
Still, the self-confessedly fussy developer is on the prowl for a unique site, preferably on the waterfront, to build something “exceptional.”
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© The Vancouver Sun 2005
