“….. when repairs got underway, it was discovered the other units in the building were in a poor state of repair and significant upgrades were required to make them livable.”

I find it amazing that the province “discovered” that problem that late in the process of buying the tower. Knowing that beforehand should have resulted in a lower purchase price by close to the cost of renovating the whole building.

A building that is 40 years old deteriorates over time, especially if tenants and landlords do not take care of it. I mean, we know that from watching how the City has not maintained many of its facilities and how much it costs to rebuild. This should not have come as a surprise. This should have been obvious with an inspection prior to purchasing the building.

So here, from the looks of it, we have the province not able to act in a diligent manner to protect the taxpayers of BC.

BTW, what happened that they started off with 100 units and now have 93? That sounds like there will be about an 8% decrease in total rent. Are there some suites converted to larger suites to offset some of that loss of revenue?

Gus the article says 93 ‘geared to income’ so subsidized suites I would assume. That would leave 7 that are not subsidized by my math? Subsidized I would think is rated on a percentage of ones income.

Good investment by the Province IMO.

So is the city going to charge them for a business licence for each rental unit?

Great news. One clarification though, it has been 3 years 1 month and 14 days since the fire. Story says 2 years as I read it.

6:30 am November 3rd 2010 we stood outside and watched the flames shoot from the 5th floor. Awesome that they will be finished!

They should have got a home inspector in there before they bought it.

Nothing but good can come out of this. The last owner treated tenants and the building like crap… Gus do I need to cite my sources?

You are quite correct, eagleone …… if it were not for the sentence immediately after the one you quoted.

“The refurbished building will have a total of 93 units, made up of a mix of bachelor, one and two bedroom apartments.”

;-)

edjoch67 … I do not know. Do you feel like you have to cite your sources? I am assuming you lived there or knew people who did.

If BC Housing is involved, then it should be reasonable. Actually, it is because BC Housing is involved that I said what I did about that they should have known better.

This is a good news story and long awaited and needed.
The article appears to suffer a bit from copy and paste syndrome……. Is it opening in Mid January of 2014 or in the spring of 2013….Th article as posted needs a bit of editing …

____________________________

” The repairs and upgrades have taken much longer than expected, and the new residents are expected to be moving into the Victoria Towers in mid January, 2014.

There will be 93 geared to income units in the refurbished building which is scheduled to be ready for occupation in the spring of 2013.”

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I guess everyone is forgetting the fact that the cause of the fire was never determined, which makes it so convenient for the insurance company pay for all the damage and renovations.

And the owners of that building ends up being the Province, hmm… go figure!

I lived there back in the distant past and had to exit the building a few times due to smokers putting their hot ashes into their garbage bags and then down the garbage chute.

I would think that since the owners sold the building to the government that any insurance payout would be a cash settlement to the old owners less the deductible since they did not repair the building. The purchase price would reflect the fact that the building was uninhabitable until renovated/repaired. Any renovations would be at the taxpayers dime through BC Housing unless I am missing something here.