The last stand of old Robson

John Mackie
Sun

Vancouver Sun / The S’il Vous Plait diner was one of seven small, independent retailers in the old commercial building on the south side of the 500-block of Robson Street. Photograph by: Jenelle Schneider, VANCOUVER SUN

With its vintage booths, vintage stools and vintage menu, Cafe S’il Vous Plait was a throwback to another era, a 1940s diner amidst the hustle and bustle of ultra-modern Robson street.

That era just came to an end. On May 31, the restaurant closed, unable to make ends meet after its rent was doubled to $7,800 per month.

Its building may not be around much longer, either. An artist’s conception for a new retail complex at 500 Robson has gone up on Cafe S’il Vous Plait’s awning featuring a Nike outlet, the American gourmet food store Dean & Deluca, and something called Bahay-Izakaya (Izakaya is a type of Japanese bar).

The new retail complex looks very modern, but generic — big windows, white facade, glass canopy. It’s a far cry from the current building, which is one of Vancouver‘s last art deco retail fronts, and one of Robson’s last outposts of small independent retailers.

The building is looking a little rough, with peeling paint and awnings covered in grime. But it retains its original black subway tiles and deco lines, and is a wonderful jumble of loud paint colours — yellow, green, orange, maroon.

The wild colours reflect the wide variety of businesses within. Cafe S’il Vous Plait was on the corner at 500 Robson. Next door is Falafel Maison, then a vacant space that used to be Shoe Renu, who moved out last month. Robson Flowers, Waverly Barbers and Stylists, Vietsub Vietnamese Cuisine and Storm Salon complete the block.

The smaller stores occupy 400 sq. ft. spaces. Falafel Maison pays $5,000 per month on a month-to-month lease, double what it paid to the previous owner of the property, Mary Siebold.

Siebold sold the building and a lot next door to East Robson Holdings in March 2008 for $6,515,000. A spokesman for East Robson was unavailable for comment, but the high price the company paid for the property may mean the site will eventually be razed for a condo development. The six lots behind 500 Robson are currently a parking lot, with five of the six lots owned by Paul Y Construction, a Hong Kong company.

If the building does get torn down, or is renovated into something contemporary, Hassan Alawie of Falafel Maison said downtown will lose part of its personality.

“If you walk down Robson street, you see everything modern,” said Alawie.

“You don’t see a building like this anymore, old heritage. It’s kind of nice for people, coming into a heritage building instead of modern. It’s the only thing that’s different, it gives personality to Robson, you know what I mean?”

Heritage advocate John Atkin concurs.

“It would be a real pity to lose such an original 1920s retail block that still survives in essentially original condition, and that actually has useful businesses,” he said.

“Cafe S’il Vous Plait is a wonderful throwback, but it’s also a viable place . . . it’s one of the best cafes that is still intact in Vancouver. It would be a real pity to see this thing renovated beyond recognition, because it’s quite rare.”

A restaurant has been at 500 Robson since 1947, when Ted Lucich opened Teddy’s Snack Bar at the corner of Robson and Richards. It remained Teddy’s Snack Bar until 1987, when it became Cafe S’il Vous Plait. The Cafe’s last owner, Kyung Wook Kim, took over in 1989.

The building isn’t on the Vancouver heritage register, but it does have an interesting history. To begin with, it’s two buildings that have been stitched together. The western side of the block (530 to 548 Robson) was built in 1925, the eastern side (500 to 520 Robson) was built in 1938.

All sorts of businesses operated there over the years — groceries, tattoo parlours, tobacconists — but there have been several long term tenants.

The Strand Barber Shop moved into 536 Robson in 1929 and stayed until 1973, while shoe repair shops rented 520 Robson since 1954. The last shoe guy left his red and green neon “Shoe Renu” sign in the window, along with a hand-written sign reading “Unclaimed shoe $5, boot $20.”

Given the economic downturn, it’s hard to say how quickly the building will be redeveloped. But even if it isn’t torn down, it could use some renovations.

“The roof on it is falling apart, there’s issues with the plumbing,” said Simon Coutts of Simon’s Bike Shop, who used to rent space in the building.

“There’s been no real maintenance done on it in 40 or 50 years. Have you seen the size of the bathrooms? They don’t conform to anything.”

As a small retailer, Coutts feels for the current tenants. But he knows that when somebody pays $6.5 million for a building, they’re not going to keep cheap rents.

“The guy basically said I’ve paid so much for this building I have to recoup some of my costs,” said Coutts.

“Mrs. Siebold didn’t give many increases over 20 years, if any. Very old-school, keep everything the same.”

Coutts rents a space at 608 Robson for his bike store, but purchased a small building on Seymour just in case his current locale is redeveloped. He said given the high price of real estate, and rents, it’s hard for an independent retailer to make a go of it downtown.

“The only guys that are still here are the corporates,” he said.

“And more so than ever, in this area. The downtown core is corporate.”

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Derrick Penner
Sun

A recent court decision that allowed a Richmond couple to walk away from their contract to buy a pre-sale condominium gives ammunition to dozens of buyers being sued by developers for failing to complete their purchases, say the lawyers representing some of them.

B.C. Supreme Court Judge Lynn Smith, in a judgment released Wednesday, ruled that Timothy and Teresa Dwane had the right to rescind their agreement to buy a $3.5-million condominium in a development called Coast at the University of B.C.

The Dwanes sued the developer, Bastion Coast Homes and Coast Development Partnerships, when they discovered they hadn’t been informed of significant changes in plans for the unit and the building, as is required under the Real Estate Development and Marketing Act.

While this was a case of the buyer suing the developer, lawyers representing buyers being sued by developers for failing to complete their purchases say Smith’s decision helps their cases.

“A big issue is disclosure,” according to lawyer Bryan Baynham, “whether or not it was made, whether or not it was full disclosure, whether or not the changes made were material changes.”

Baynham represents nine buyers being sued by the Onni Group of companies for breaching their contracts to buy apartments in a Port Moody development.

Onni Group earlier this year filed suit against dozens of buyers in a several projects for the same reason.

Metro Vancouver‘s real estate markets had turned and the value of the apartments in question had dropped below the purchase prices contained in the buyers’ contracts.

Onni sought to cancel the buyers’ contracts, keep their deposits, and collect further damages representing the difference between the pre-sale purchase prices and the value on the open market at the time of closing, as well as other costs.

Baynham said his clients have cases to make in defence.

They vary from case to case, but he said most involve issues with Onni’s compliance with its requirement to disclose material changes in the projects to buyers.

Baynham said developers benefited from B.C.’s condo marketing legislation, because it allowed them to sell apartments before they were built and use the buyers’ deposits to help secure financing for their construction.

“It only makes sense to do this in an upward market,” Baynham said, because buyers wouldn’t put money into a purchase if they thought there was a risk it would lose value.

“Now the tide is turned, property values have dropped, and they’re trying to require people to make up the shortfall,” Baynham said.

Ken Pazder, another real estate lawyer, said Smith’s judgment was important because it helps clarify the Real Estate Development and Marketing Act’s role as consumer protection legislation at a time that law is being seriously tested because of the downturn.

“This is definitely a pro-buyer case,” he said.

A number of other cases are winding their way through court, ranging from suits launched by developers against buyers, to developments such as the high-profile Jameson House project in downtown Vancouver, which sought court protection from bankruptcy after the collapse of its financing last fall.

One aspect of the developer’s plan to emerge from bankruptcy involves enforcing the pre-sale contracts of 75 buyers in the building over the protests of a significant number who have argued that changes to the project should allow them to rescind those contracts.

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Compared to 11.75%, most options look good

Jonathan Chevreau
Sun

The perfect mortgage is, of course, no mortgage at all. So, the next best thing is to have one flexible enough to pay off the principal as fast as possible.

All mortgages are structured so payments in the early years are primarily interest charges: Very little principal is shaved off unless you make sure payments are high enough and frequent enough that a good chunk — perhaps 50% rather than the usual 5% or 10% — is going straight to the principal.

Taking advantage of annual prepayment options, usually 10% or 15% of principal, is another way to chop years off an amortization schedule and save tens of thousands of dollars in interest payments.

Couple this approach with interest rates hovering near generational lows, and home buyers have a real opportunity right now: Someone taking out a fixed-rate mortgage may be paying as little as 3.69% in interest, which means even more of the monthly payments will be whittling down the principal.

But what about those who committed to fixed-rate mortgages when rates were higher? It may now be worth their while to break the existing mortgage and refinance.

The problem is homeowners have no legal right to break the contract, said Toronto real estate lawyer Alan Silverstein, who once wrote a book titled The Perfect Mortgage.

If you have a 10-year mortgage, after five years you can break it by paying a penalty of three months interest.

But for mortgages of less than five years, there’s no law saying the homeowner has the right to pay off the mortgage and refinance under more favourable terms.

At most institutions, the penalty is the greater of three months interest or the Interest Rate Differential (IRD).

The latter is the difference between the higher rate you had originally agreed to pay and the lower rate institutions would now be able to charge by lending the same capital to someone else.

A deal’s a deal, after all, and the lender would lose a bundle by letting you off the hook.

Even so, TriDelta Financial president Ted Rechtshaffen suggests refinancing now could save homeowners “thousands.” “Do not be put off by what looks like a big penalty. It is only one factor,” he says.

“These penalties can also be rolled into a new mortgage so you don’t have to come up with the cash.” The first step is to read your mortgage contract to find out what it will cost to refinance. It may be a wash — what you gain in lower interest charges may equal the penalty. However, if you’re convinced rates will continue to fall, it may be worthwhile.

You can find out the IRD precisely with a $19 calculator from Burlington, Ont.-based Amortization.com. The developer, Ron Cirotto, uses the example of someone with a $300,000 five-year fixed mortgage at 6%, amortized over 25 years. It was taken out two and a half years ago, so it has 30 more months to run. Monthly payments are $1,919.42. The new fixed mortgage rate is 4%, and the IRD is $13,663.

Say the homeowner decides to stand pat and not pay the IRD, and a month later rates drop 0.25%. It will cost even more to break the contract, which now has 29 months to run. The IRD jumps $1,260 to $14,923.

“The difference between the old rate and the new one is the main driving force for the IRD,” Mr. Cirotto says.

John Andrew Newman, an agent with Mortgage Intelligence in Mississauga, Ont., says refinancing makes sense if your income has changed or you’re relocating. But to refinance solely to get a lower rate is not always advisable, he says.

Finance professor Moshe Milevsky says it may be a wash near the start or end of an amortization schedule, but there may be a sweet spot — perhaps with two years to run — where it pays to refinance.

The decision resembles that involved in deciding to stay short with variable-rate mortgages: Homeowners need to consider cash flow and household balance sheets.

First-time homeowners shouldn’t speculate and if they can’t handle the cash flow if rates rise on a variable mortgage, they should lock in with more predictable fixedrate mortgages.

Personally, having carried a very imperfect mortgage at 11.75% in the late 1980s, I’d have been ecstatic to lock in at today’s fixed rates. From that vantage point, even today’s 10-year fixed rates of 5.15% look perfect.

– Jonathan Chevreau is the author of Findependence Day and blogs at www.wealthyboomer.ca.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Bob Ransford
Sun

The traditional role of the real estate agent, of bringing together willing buyer and willing seller, has disappeared under pages and pages of legal documents and cautionary instructions.

Vince D’Ovidio is hoping that the cooling of the metropolitan Vancouver over-heated housing market might get him, and others like him, back to simple introduction.

D’Ovidio is one of the early pioneers of new-home-project sales and marketing campaigns. He started in the real estate business nearly 30 years ago and was once a business partner with Bob Rennie. Today, like Rennie, only on a smaller scale, he represents developers with entire multi-residence projects to sell.

When he started in the business, sales ability and customer service meant everything. Caveat emptor – or buyer beware – was largely the extent of protection offered the consumer. The real estate agent’s role was to identify the buyer’s needs and demonstrate the features and benefits of a property.

Legal obligations imposed on agents have now relegated that part of the buying and selling to second place behind the preparation of voluminous paperwork, the coordination of complicated disclosure and the direction of a review of a host of legal warnings before any transaction can be completed.

Government has actually listed agents in the war on crime, D’Ovidio points out. Every agent has an obligation to ensure the money involved hasn’t been laundered. ” . . . I have to interrogate a purchaser.”

“Think about a first-time buyer. They have enough stress in their life from just buying their first home, arranging their mortgage and this and that. Now, I come along and interrogate them about their job, where they got their down payment from, what their banking arrangements are . . . .”

D’Ovidio says it rare today for a purchase and sale contract for a new home to be less than 17 or 18 pages long.

“Everyone is trying to cover their butt and they simply turn to the lawyers.”

But D’Ovidio argues that without a willing seller and buyer it really doesn’t matter how many words are written on paper.

The bureaucracy associated with ever-increasing legal requirements is frustrating the good sales people, he added.

“They know how to find a seller fair market value for their property and they know how to find a buyer a property that will meet their needs.”

He admits this more human approach to the real estate business could leave agents like him exposed once in awhile in a transaction, but as long as all parties are acting ethically the deal will get done and everyone will be happy in the end.

Bob Ransford is a public affairs consultant with CounterPoint Communications Inc. He is a former real estate developer. E-mail: [email protected]

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