Other Construction Projects
Wall's construction projects have included Capitol Residences, a 42-storey condominium tower on the site of Vancouver's Capitol Theatre, which incorporates an extension to the city's Orpheum Theatre. Wall said he was attracted to this project as a way to help the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, whose home is the Orpheum. The result was portrayed in The Globe and Mail as an attempt "to bring the tinsel back to downtown".
Among Wall's innovations was a car-sharing scheme to attract buyers to one of his properties. The idea was reported in 2003 as a ploy to sell more condos in an increasingly saturated market. In 2004, Wall was involved in the acquisition of Hastings Racecourse. At the time of the deal, he was described as "a renowned philanthropist, real estate baron and successful horse owner a love for horse racing".
Wall's friend Bob Rennie, who has worked extensively with him, described the Wall formula as "Great location, smaller suites. Put in a Sub-Zero fridge and a Wolf range with red knobs, and they'll line up to buy it". In May 2008, Wall Corporation bought a building at 1212 Howe Street in downtown Vancouver. In charge of the building's sales and marketing campaign, Rennie claimed that it "played right into Peter Wall's model of 'take a prime location and undersize the suites a bit' ".
Many commentators argue that Vancouver's real-estate boom, which has been accused of increasing the divide between its rich and poor, is a bubble about to burst. As of May 2008, Wall himself remained buoyant. "I'm trying to keep the price down, " he remarked, " so that everybody can make a deal that's equitable, and then we can all make money. To live in B.C., you're lucky. To live in the Lower Mainland, you're very lucky. To live in Vancouver and own real estate, you have won the lottery".
Read more about this topic: Peter Wall (property Developer)
Famous quotes containing the words construction and/or projects:
“There’s no art
To find the mind’s construction in the face:
He was a gentleman on whom I built
An absolute trust.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“One of the things that is most striking about the young generation is that they never talk about their own futures, there are no futures for this generation, not any of them and so naturally they never think of them. It is very striking, they do not live in the present they just live, as well as they can, and they do not plan. It is extraordinary that whole populations have no projects for a future, none at all.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)