Vancouver Sun
May 7, 2009
Townline Group president Rick Ilich’s realty selling ace in the hole is almost as oldfashioned as truth. In fact, it’s heritage itself. According to Madison Marketing Inc. president Yvonne Drinovz, the heritage aspect of Townline’s 57-unit The Crane project at 546 Beatty St. is what drew buyers to the 20 one-bedroom suites Townline offered there early this year. Drinovz sold all the 670-to- 770-square-foot units in six weeks for $350,000 to $420,000 each, “and I wish I had dozens more.”
Thirty-three units were pre-sold in 2006, including five penthouses and sub-penthouses, in a new structure atop the Crane and set back from the street façade. But region-wide reductions in the 20-per-cent range from completion pricing, gave many Crane units “the $400,000 magic buyers were looking to stay below.”
With pricing approximating that of resale product downtown, The Yale’s recent offering appealed to resident buyers in their early thirties, 80 per cent of them couples, said Drinovz, who undertakes all of Townline’s downtown sales. “We are getting a lot of interest in the luxury market,” Drinovz said regarding four remaining penthouses that run from $870,000 to $1,650,000 and feature Townline’s signature glass walls that rise, garage-style.
Townline recently completed a luxury, 12-unit infill building at 1241 Homer as a sister to one at 1168 Richards. The heritage aspect there is a façade of bricks recycled from a demolished Chinatown building. Its mega-heritage project, though, is in Victoria. That’s where the wedding-cake Bay department store will become a 152-suite project named — like Rob McDonald and Peter Wall’s Granville-at-Dunsmuir development — The Hudson.
Work on the currently stalled $300- million project entails removing the 1920s building’s roof and adding two penthouse levels, as well as coring it to create a courtyard and windows for inner suites. Prices run from $410,000 to $1,550,000. “My dream would be to have a project like that in Vancouver,” Drinovz said.
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