Old plumbing plant gets unique and sexy facelift

Kate Webb
Province

When nostalgia for historic industrial architecture collides with modern convenience and style, the result is something special.

Such is the case at 540 Beatty, a seven-storey condo mid-rise being integrated into the exposed brick walls and cast-iron pillars of the century-old Crane Building.

Originally used as a plumbing manufacturing plant, the downtown heritage structure is getting a completely unique hand-crafted makeover.

For example, the factory’s original double-hung wood sash windows have been carefully restored and reinstalled with new paint and smoother sliding mechanisms.

The floors have been freshly poured with thrice-finished polished cement to keep the industrial feel intact.

“I kind of relate this to buying an old, vintage car,” says Dave Jarvis, sales manager for 540 Beatty. “Once you’ve purchased it and you’ve fixed it up, you have one of a kind.”

The building’s location is known as Crosstown, due to its position among some of downtown’s trendiest neighbourhoods.

“They’re trying to make this like Yaletown with all these restaurants and coffee shops and boutiques, and neat stores with accessories for your home,” says Jarvis.

“We’re close to the SkyTrain, Canada Place, GM Place, Chinatown and Yaletown, so we’re pretty central.”

Another neat feature drawing lots of attention from buyers is the innovative way developer Townline decided to solve the problem of parking.

Since there isn’t enough room on the parking floors for a ramp, a car elevator was installed.

“It reminds me of Batman,” says Jarvis with a grin.

The elevator is similar to one already operating in another refurbished Townline tower at 1180 Homer St., and takes about 20 seconds to get up or down.

The display suite is bright and spacious, despite the fact that it only has windows on one side.

That feeling is created by ceilings ranging from 10 to 16 feet, and multiple glass panels allowing natural light to flow freely from the living room to bedroom, all the way back to the bathroom.

The smallest suites — offering one-bedroom plus a storage room — have an open bedroom, meaning there’s no fourth wall, no door to close.

“It’s open living and not everyone likes it, but the people who do like it love it,” says Jarvis.

“What this is designed to do is bring light from the outside into the bedroom.”

Even so, anyone with an imagination and a little talent can easily turn that wall-void into a dramatic personal statement.

One buyer decided to erect a giant, colourful curtain, Jarvis says, while others might choose to put in a sliding glass door instead.

Storage was certainly not overlooked in these homes. There’s a big coat closet at the front and a deep, elongated closet with organizer directly across from the bedroom with a reinforced storage ledge above it.

The open-concept kitchen and living room are distinctly modern, with light sconces imported from Italy and an illuminated art niche.

The kitchen features white, high-gloss laminate and frosted glass cabinetry, Corian countertops, a convenient chop-block-topped island and an undermounted double sink. There’s also a pantry with tons of storage, a Liebherr integrated fridge, Jenn-Air ceramic cook-top stove and integrated Bosch dishwasher and oven.

The bathroom is yet another testament to the charm of post-antique renovation, with a white carrera marble countertop and bath shelf, beautiful pale green glass tiles, and a frosted glass wall between the shower and hallway.

“It’s a sexy feature for couples because you can see the silhouette,” says Jarvis.

Another unusual quirk is that the stacked Bosch washer and dryer has its compartment in the bathroom, so owners can toss their clothes hamper and put clothes directly in the wash.

A month-and-a-half into sales, 540 Beatty is more than 60 per cent sold. Move-ins start in November.

540 BEATTY

What: 540 Beatty, a refurbished seven-storey, 57-condo mid-rise.

Where: 540 Beatty St., Vancouver.

Developer: Townline.

Sizes: One-bedroom-plus-storage up to two-bedrooms-plus-den, from 620 to 1880 sq. ft.

Prices: $395,000 to $2.2 million.

Open: Presentation centre and one display suite at 540 Beatty St., open from noon to 5 p.m. Saturday to Wednesday.

More info: www.540beatty. com

© The Vancouver Province 2008

 

Signs California bottoming and may lead revival

Jim Christie, Reuters
Province

SAN FRANCISCO — A bottom in the battered U.S. housing market may emerge first in California, one of the states hardest hit by foreclosures and where home prices are dropping to a point where the cost of a mortgage and taxes equals rent.

“The key is to try is to get some stability in the price of homes, which appears to be happening in California,” veteran banking analyst Charles Peabody of Portales Partners told Reuters by phone on Friday.

And as goes California, the most populous state, so goes the rest of the U.S., according to Peabody.

He sees the tumble in California home prices nearing its end and suspects home prices elsewhere likewise will stabilize.

“Since California constitutes 25 per cent of the housing stock in the U.S., any stabilization can have a profound impact on national averages,” Peabody said in a recent report.

The fall in home prices in California, fuelled dramatically this year by the fire sale of foreclosed homes, combined with reasonably low mortgage interest rates is making homeownership more affordable again.

As a result, home sales are picking up and are foreshadowing a stabilization in home prices in California before the end of this year, Peabody said.

“By extension, a stabilization in home prices is required before any sustainable rally in financials can be expected,” he added. “It is our belief that we are moving in that direction.”

Reasons to believe in California home prices will firm may be found in the California Association of Realtors data, Peabody said.

Notably, buyers are responding to sharply lower home prices. The realtors’ group reports the state’s June home sales rose 17.5 per cent from a year earlier while its median home price plunged 37.7 per cent. June also marked the third consecutive month of increases of home sales from year-earlier levels in the state.

Additionally, the backlog of homes for sale in California has steadily decreased this year, falling to 7.7 months of supply in June from 16.8 months in January, and the days a home for sale stayed on the market fell to 49.1 in June from 71.6 in January.

In many parts of California, buying a house, especially at auction, makes more financial sense than paying rent.

Peabody noted that in Lompoc, Calif., home prices are “depressed”, with the local median price was down 39.7 per cent in June from a year earlier, and a buyer may be able to get a house that would have cost $500,000 during the heyday of the housing boom earlier in the decade at auction now for $250,000.

The annual “carrying costs”, or monthly mortgage payments and property taxes, for a home in Lompoc, now equates to about 25 per cent of the $80,000 gross income of a two-income-earning, blue-collar household.

© The Vancouver Province 2008

 

Sun

540 Beatty is a new-home, old-building undertaking and one of six Metroliving projects in downtown Vancouver from Townline Homes.

Erected in 1911 — yes, at 540 Beatty — the Crane Building was originally a warehouse, showroom and office for the Crane Co., the steam, mill and plumbing equipment supplier. Today, however, it’s something else: a multi-residence building comprised of eight studios, 28 one-bedroom apartments, 12 two-bedroom units and nine penthouses.

The homes will retain numerous historic features — they include original brick feature-walls and exposed concrete ceiling, original refurbished wood sash windows and exposed heritage columns — as well as contemporary touches. Floors are polished concrete throughout, and the modern kitchens and bathrooms feature high-gloss cabinetry. Appliances are from Liebherr, Jennair and Bosch.

The homes, reports Townline’s Katie Wilkinson, represent “unique, one-of-a-kind loft living.”

Of the 57 homes, products of architect Howard Bingham Hill, 21 are still available. Most of the remaining homes are open one-bedroom plans — they range from 670 to 770 square feet — as well as four larger penthouses, all of which have large outdoor patios. Prices start at $395,000 for a one bedroom with a car-share plan and continue on to $1.1 million for penthouses.

The 540 Beatty presentation centre is open Saturday through Wednesday from noon to 5 p.m.

Shown here is the one-bedroom show home, as photographed for Townline by Jessica Bushey. The preparation of the other homes for occupancy and the construction of the penthouses is continuing.

For more information, call 604-684-5403 or visit www.540Beatty.com.

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

 

Is now the time to plunge into the U.S. housing market?

Sarah Dougherty
Sun

Just four years ago, with the Canadian dollar at a lowly 85 cents against the American dollar, Canadians winced at even shopping across the border.

But with our currency riding high, we’re no longer feeling like the poor cousins. Now, even buying a vacation home or investment property in the U.S. seems within reach.

And the stars are lining up for Canadian buyers in other ways: the collapse of the U.S. housing market has led to steep drops in home prices in prime locations like Florida.

But is now the time to buy? Real estate agents say yes, but others familiar with pitfalls of buying in the U.S. recommend proceeding with caution.

Marc Rasmussen is a realtor with SKY Sotheby’s International Realty specializing in properties in and around Sarasota, on Florida‘s western Gulf of Mexico coast.

He’s seen a jump in interest among international buyers. “There’s a lot of activity from Canada and Europe because of the strength of the currencies,” he said.

“The values of properties have come down 35 per cent, maybe even 40 per cent from the highs of 2005,” Rasmussen said of single-family homes and condos in his market. “In conjunction with the weak currency, it’s a pretty good time to be a buyer.”

While the prices of properties on the bays and beaches did not decline as much, they still took a hit, he added.

But in recent months, the inventory of homes for sale has declined and prices seem to have bottomed out, according to Rasmussen. For buyers in it for the longer haul and not a quick flip, now is the time to take the plunge, he said.

Over on Florida‘s east coast, realtor Kimberly Kirschner agrees prices are close to hitting bottom. Her firm, Kirschner Realty International Inc. in Hollywood, north of Miami, is targeting buyers not only from Canada, but also Europe, Britain and South America.

Kirschner has been busy attending international trade shows and says media coverage of the woes of the U.S. housing market in other countries is attracting foreign buyers. Prices in Kirschner’s area are running 20 to 40 per cent below appraised value after a frenzy of speculative buying a few years back.

“There was an awful lot of speculation at the height of the market,” said Kirschner. “A lot of them (speculative buyers) took risky loans, then couldn’t flip out fast enough when their interest rates were reset.”

Recently, sales have picked up and Kirschner thinks prices of sought-after waterfront homes will be the first to recover, making this the prime time to jump in.

But the Canadian Snowbirds Association, a lobby and information group for people spending significant time down south each year, is raising a red flag about buying in Florida, the winter home of three-quarters of its members.

The state has a two-tiered property tax system that caps the assessed values of homes of residents, but lets values rise for non-residents. Despite a recently introduced cap for non-residents, the gap between the two tax rates is significant. (Florida is the only state with this type of system, according to the Association.)

“People are very excited about the sub-prime mortgage fiasco,” said Lawrence Barker, the Association’s executive director. “But we are cautioning people about buying in Florida because of the two-tiered property-tax issue.”

Other states, like Arizona, are starting to market to Canadians to “poach” some snowbirds away from Florida, according to the Association.

Tannis Dawson has also seen an uptick in people asking about buying properties in the U.S., especially in California, Arizona, Las Vegas and Florida. She’s a senior tax and estate planning specialist with Investors Group in Winnipeg.

Dawson counsels clients to test the waters before buying. “I suggest they look at whether renting is better than buying,” she said. “That way they can try a few places out.”

She also advises clients about mitigating their currency fluctuation risk. “You’re paying in U.S. dollars but your sources of income are in Canadian dollars,” she said. “What if our currency goes down?”

One strategy is to re-mortgage a Canadian home or take out a line of credit to help pay for a U.S. home. “That way your debt is in Canadian dollars,” Dawson explained.

Canadians should also know that, as non-residents, they face stiffer mortgage requirements than Americans, said Dawson. (It’s not possible to get a Canadian mortgage on a U.S. property, she said.)

Many banks, for example, will ask for a 30 to 40 per cent down payment, plus a six-month reserve to cover a chunk of mortgage payments and property taxes.

Once you buy a property, rules about residency and taxes kick in, Dawson said. Roughly speaking, if you spend 183 days or more in the U.S., you may be deemed to be a resident and liable for U.S. taxes on your worldwide income and assets.

There are some exceptions to this rule, but even non-residents must pay taxes on rental income from a U.S. property and on the proceeds of any sale.

And if you happen to be in the path of a tornado, flood or other natural disaster, don’t expect the government to help: Disaster relief in the U.S. is not available for vacation properties, only primary residences.

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

 

Citizen group claims public consultation skewed towards developer

Cheryl Rossi
Van. Courier

An Arbutus Ridge group of citizens is so upset by the consultations about their local mall, it filed a complaint with the provincial ombudsman.

Georgina Spilos, chair of the Arbutus Ridge Concerned Citizens Association, says the group learned July 15 that its complaint against the city had been accepted, a file opened and an investigator assigned.

City council unanimously approved Tuesday a policy that will guide rezoning and redevelopment of Arbutus Centre, on Arbutus near King Edward. COPE Coun. David Cadman was absent for the vote.

Against the wishes of some community members, the policy suggests up to 650 condo units could be added to the seven-acre site, and the tallest buildings could be up to eight storeys in height, with most varying from three to six storeys. A new entrance is proposed at Nanton and Yew.

Spilos and the association worries the public consultation was biased in favour of landowner Larco Investments Ltd., which paid the city the $397,000 cost of policy planning. “We want them to look at the impact of this cost-recovery process on the entire planning program. If the developer pays the bill, does it affect the final results?” Spilos said.

“We went down [to city hall] last Thursday and they made all these seniors wait for four hours and then at the very end of the day, they decide they’re going to rush some people through,” she added. “While we were waiting, they’re in a boardroom, all the Larco developer team with all the city planners. And of course, all the people there are going, ‘Well it’s obvious they’re not working on our side.'”

Dwayne Drobot, a city planner with the major projects group, said the practice of developers paying for a policy plan for its site has been standard since the early 1990s. That way developers, not taxpayers, fund the work, he said.

Spilos said the 240 area residents who’ve joined the citizens’ group don’t feel they were listened to. “They already had what they were going to do and what they were trying to do is sell it to us,” she said. “The whole thing was a staged sales presentation.”

But Drobot noted changes to the proposed concept were made as a result of public consultation, including reduced building heights and increased setbacks. The city held open houses in June last year and January and May this year. He hasn’t received any information from the ombudsman’s office.

Spilos said the association sent so much evidence to the ombudsman’s office that it has asked them to identify the two or three most pressing issues.

The association’s steering committee meets Aug. 5 to identify key concerns. “We want to focus on the ones that will help the most people, rather than our particular gripe with a particular person,” Spilos said.

Karen Sawatzky, outreach, information and education officer for the office of the B.C. Ombudsman, couldn’t confirm whether a complaint is being investigated because the office, which is independent of government, keeps investigations confidential.

Investigations can last a few days to a few months, she said, and the office’s decisions are not legally binding. But when recommendations are produced, they’re typically followed, she said.

We are impartial and thorough, so usually we come up with pretty good recommendations,” Sawatzky said.

She added many cases brought to the ombudsman’s office are resolved before the recommendation stage because the complaints are often the result of miscommunication or a lack of information.

The policy approval paves the way for rezoning. Before Larco can bring an application to the city, it needs to complete an array of studies, including work on traffic.

© Vancouver Courier 2008

 

375 descendants of Chinatown patriarch gather to honour family history

John Mackie
Sun

Yip Sang died in 1927, but his legacy can still be seen all over Chinatown.

His headquarters at 51 East Pender, built in 1889, is now Chinatown‘s oldest building, and is being refurbished as the new offices and private art gallery of condo king Bob Rennie.

Yip Sang also built the West Hotel at 488 Carrall to house new immigrants from China who were short of cash. It’s still standing, and providing housing to the poor. The Chinese Benevolent Association he co-founded in 1895 is still thriving.

Still, Yip Sang’s main legacy appears to be his descendants.

The patriarch of Chinatown, he had four wives and 23 children, and they have multiplied. This Saturday, 375 descendants of Yip Sang are expected to gather for a family reunion.

The eldest relative in attendance will be Yip Sang’s grandson Henry Yip, who will turn 91 in August. The youngest will probably be a six-month old baby. In between will be Yips who have flown in from all across North America to attend a lunch at the Flota restaurant, then take a tour of Rennie’s reconstruction of the Yip Sang building.

No doubt, Yip Sang’s spirit will be watching over the proceedings, sternly.

“He was a very strict disciplinarian towards the family,” Henry Yip recalled.

“He used to sit downstairs in the store there, right beside the pot-belly stove. He’d watch every family member go in and out. If you were not in by 10, the door was locked.”

There were a lot of people coming and going, because the Yip Sang building isn’t just the three-storey building visible from the street, but also a six-storey structure he built in behind to house his family.

The story goes that each wife and their children had a floor; Henry grew up on the fourth. The children were educated in a private schoolroom on the third floor of the front building.

“The Chinese at that time, they weren’t allowed to go to English school,” explains Henry.

It seemed to work fine. Yip Sang’s 17th child, Dock, became Canada’s first Chinese-Canadian lawyer in 1945, and two years later was a key figure in the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1923, which had barred Chinese immigration into Canada. Another son, Ghim, was the first Chinese doctor in Canada, and a third, Quene, was a local soccer legend.

One of the family quirks is that they refer to Yip Sang’s children by number, rather than by name. Dock was number 17, Quene was number 16, and Ghim was number 11.

“I don’t know why, but we always did it that way,” said Randall Yip, one of Quene’s three sons.

“Depending on who it was, I would also call them Uncle Art [or whatever].”

It was a practical way of identifying family members, and Yip Sang was a practical man. Born in Shengtang, China in 1845, he immigrated to San Francisco in 1864, then came to Canada in 1881. In 1882 he settled in Vancouver (then called Granville), where he was in charge of hiring Chinese labourers for the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway. It was a big job — he is said to have hired 6,000 to 7,000 workers.

In 1889 he built a two-storey brick building to house his Wing Sang company, which imported and exported most anything. A Wing Sang ad from the Dec. 6, 1891 Daily News-Advertiser said the company dealt in “China silks, utensils, trinkets and curios, [and] Japanese drygoods.” At the bottom of the ad, in capital letters, it proclaimed “Importers of Opium.” (Opium was legal in Canada until 1908.)

A third storey was added onto the original building in 1901, then the six-storey building was added in back in 1912.

How did he come to have several wives?

“He married his first wife in China, but she wasn’t well and knew that she was probably going to pass away,” said Randall Yip.

“So she told him he should have another wife to look after the kids, that’s how the second wife came along.”

What about the other two?

“Oh … I don’t think I’ll comment,” he laughed.

Rennie said the renovation of the Yip Sang building is 70 to 75 per cent complete. He had offered the family a chance to tour the facility, expecting construction would be completed by the time of the reunion. But there have been delays, so they’ll be doing a hard-hat tour instead.

When the project is finished next spring, the front building will be Rennie’s offices, and the back building will be his private art gallery and museum. The top five floors have been hollowed out into one big space, which he said is quite dramatic. And it was very expensive.

“The six-storey building at the back, we’ve had to go in and build a complete new concrete liner, build another building within it so we could keep that heritage preservation,” Rennie said.

How much did it cost?

“A lot more than we thought,” he laughed.

© The Vancouver Sun 2008

Don Cayo
Sun

The following people have at least one thing in common:

– An elderly woman waiting months for a hip replacement.

– A young Yaletown couple with a first child on the way.

– A laid-off forest industry worker in a town with no future for him or his family.

– An up-and-coming executive who just accepted a promotion at a branch in another B.C. city.

You don’t see the common thread?

Then odds are you’re not a provincial tax collector.

If you were, you’d be rubbing your hands in glee. After all, it’s these folks and others like them who pay a big chunk of your salary.

These are people whose circumstances — whether bad luck or good — mean they’ll be moving house sometime soon. And assuming they’re not among the growing number of British Columbians who don’t own a home and can’t afford to buy any time soon, each move means big bucks for the taxman.

It adds up to $9,500 in the not-at-all-hypothetical case of the elderly woman and her husband, says Abbotsford realtor Dave Andrews. A big property transfer tax liability will be generated first when they sell the multi-storey home she can no longer get around, then again when they buy a more accessible condo.

To put it bluntly, the government will reward itself with $9,500 for no other reason than its own slack-assed failure to provide timely care. No wonder so many voters fairly spit when they speak of this tax and the politicians who so blithely defend it.

As I wrote last week, “In a perfect world, the property transfer tax would be scrapped. It’s an ill-conceived policy. It’s a drag on business start-ups, and an extra cost on the already daunting cost of home ownership.”

In this imperfect world, however, logic and sound policy don’t cut it when politicians convince themselves they need money.

So it’s worth a moment to get your head around just how much money is at stake, and just how pernicious is the auto-pilot mechanism that allows it to grow by leaps and bounds without the inconvenience of the government having to pass a law or being forced to defend this tax-grab in the legislature.

The first thing that has driven prices is the more-or-less doubling of property values in B.C. in the last decade. The increase in average MLS residential prices in the province as a whole is from $220,500 to $439,000. (In Metro Vancouver it’s from $287,100 to $570,800, and in the Fraser Valley it’s $224,500 to $423,800.)

The second thing is that the percentage most people pay is also up a lot. PTT is assessed at one per cent on the first $200,000, and two per cent on anything over. So back in ’97, when the average selling price was about $220,000, the one-per-cent rate applied to the bulk of sales value. Today, with the average price nearly $440,000, the two-per-cent rate applies to most of the sales value.

Thus, in a decade when the average price of homes has just about doubled, the government’s take has way more than quadrupled. It has gone from $224 million in ’98-99 to $1.l billion now.

Yet, despite this astonishing windfall, it’s becoming apparent that the revenue department is making a concerted effort to be aggressive — if not downright mean — in collecting this tax.

Tax specialist Paul Sullivan of Burgess Cawley Sullivan & Associates tells me he usually has one or two PTT cases a year, but at the moment he has a couple of dozen on his desk. They involve some very large transactions, he said, and the department is being unusually and unnecessarily aggressive — for example, placing a lien on several of one developer’s Western Canadian properties because a few tens of thousands of dollars are in dispute.

Similarly, the volume of personal stories I’m hearing from readers is far higher than ever before. A low-income elderly woman is being penalized thousands for “lying” when, she tells me quite convincingly, she was merely confused. A couple gets dinged for thousands more when, 25 years after they married, he gets around to putting half their communal property into her name. A young woman loses her first-time-buyer exemption when she lets a friend occupy her new condo while she pursues a learning opportunity abroad. Couples get dinged with PTT when they split up and one retains the family home. Cottagers who’ve seen their Crown-land lease rates soar exponentially get nailed with PTT on the value of their own cottages when they eventually buy. And on and on . . .

Nor is the pernicious effect of this tax merely a once- or twice-in-a-lifetime hit for most British Columbians. As is spelled out in the accompanying story (“What 1% or 2% really costs”), its impact can — and often does — drag you down for a long, long time.

WHAT 1% OR 2% REALLY COSTS

If Dave Andrews’s daughter in Alberta and his son in B.C. each have good jobs and $30,000 to go toward their first home, here’s what they can expect, according to the thoughtful calculations of their dad, an Abbotsford realtor.

She’ll be able to put it all into a downpayment, and leverage a $570,000 mortgage to buy a $600,000 home with a suite to help meet the monthly payments.

He’ll spend $7,500 off the top to cover B.C.’s property transfer tax. Mortgage companies won’t consider that part of his downpayment, so he’ll be eligible for only a $450,000 loan. That’s not likely to buy him a home with a suite, so he’ll get no mortgage-helper.

She’ll be left with payments of about $2,400 a month, plus the $1,000 she gets in rent. He’ll have to pay $2,730. So he’ll need $5,400 a year more in pre-tax income to cover those stiffer payments.

If both properties appreciate 15 per cent a year — not unrealistic in the hot Vancouver or Calgary markets — she’ll build $90,000 additional equity in the first 12 months. With his lower-value property, he’ll gain just $54,336.

Thus, “My son has $35,664 less equity with $3,600 more annual expenses in his first year,” Andrews said in a presentation this spring to the legislature’s select standing committee on service and finance. “The monthly payments continue for 25 years for my son in B.C. with a cost of $90,000 more than his Alberta sister will pay. . . . This is all thanks to the transfer tax her brother had to pay from his identical $30,000 downpayment.”

And this means, of course, that the daughter will have far more cash if she decides to trade up to a newer or larger home, or to move closer to work. And the son’s smaller pool of cash will be further eroded by a second bite from property transfer tax if he ever changes houses.

Andrews works through several possible scenarios that all add up to hundreds of dollars in higher monthly payments and tens of thousands in less equity.

Sadly, the hit on his son’s finances is not balanced by a corresponding gain to the B.C. treasury. Every $1 the province gains in PTT revenue will, thanks to the magic of compound interest, cost his son well over $2.

© The Vancouver Sun 2008