But the first chapters are even slower than anyone expected, because of how long it’s taking to sell the village condos.

As an additional note, I have to say how totally lovely I find it down there. I went down twice today, once in the afternoon and once again just now.

The public plaza with Myfanwy MacLeod’s enormous sparrows looming over it is a living work of art. So are the Amsterdam-like streets (narrow, paved with special blocks so that, even though you’re allowed to go there in a car, you drive slowly because it feels more like pedestrian space), the beautiful luminous glass panels on various buildings, the most lovely bit of seawall walkway in the whole city, and more.

As always, it makes me sad that the prices of these units are unaffordable to people like me (household in the top 10 percentile for income, but this is still unattainable) and many others. I had thought of buying a place down here for when my knees can’t take the four flights of stairs in my Edwardian any more, but the land price and construction costs combined to make it unthinkable.

Not sure if that’s what’s keeping others away, but it certainly isn’t bustling yet. I saw a couple of people moving in today. This evening, one couple emerged from a building, out to walk their dog. But they looked like they might be the only ones living in their building so far.

This is quite the popular place for Vancouverites these days, for those who didn’t know. The city of Vancouver sent over its sustainability demo house that it had open at the Olympics and a veritable parade of people from here are making there way over. Among them, Roger Bayley of Merrick Architecture, the design manager for the Olympic Village, is there talking about it as a model of sustainability. But now, heeere’s Michael.

Hello  family and friends…sorry there are no interesting blogs yet, but I cannot write my blog from Shanghai….nor can I get into facebook or twitter!  So I will have to make alternative arrangements.  However, I can say the Shanghai Expo is quite fantastic, and almost surreal….I’m not even Chinese but I am proud for them.

The Expo site is significantly more spread out than our Expo 86 property, (about 7.5 times the size) and the pavilions are much, much more impressive.  It is more reminiscent of the Expo 67 site, where each country built it’s own pavilion, rather than use a ‘standardized’ approach. I have just sent in my first Vancouver Sun story, which will hopefully appear shortly, with pictures, and I’ll get something up on my blog somehow.

In the meanwhile, here are a few photos of the Czech Pavilion which features a map of the old city of Prague…in hockey pucks, the Canada Pavilion, in wood, of cours, and some of the other colourful and unusual sites.  There’s so much to see! (sorry, pix not included here – Eds.)

(next day)

This fair is just like the Olympics, EXPO 86 and the SFU Sustainability course combined…but .with better food.  There is so much to see and write about, it is very difficult to communicate the scale and breadth of ideas. 

Yesterday I spent time at the German Pavilion, the Pavilion of the Future and the Vancouver/BC Wood case study….more about these later.

In the meanwhile, you should seriously think about getting a plane ticket and heading on over to the fair before the end of October.  June would be a good time…it’s not expensive…the fare on Japan Airlines is under $1,000; there are many 5 star hotels offering rooms for as low as $125 a night…it costs $15 to $24 a day to get in…depending on whether you are over 60, and everything is quite reasonable by Canadian standards….something to think about. 

Blog link is here

In the meantime, CBC has a story about one disgruntled condo buyer there who is angry because he thought he would get a view with his $1.4 million condo, but now apparently won’t. The warning he seems to be trying to give is that, if you buy from plans only, you could end up disappointed.

But I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that, even if you buy only already built apartments, you can be disappointed on the view front. I’ve covered more than a few meetings at city hall where buyers who thought they would have unobstructed views forever were hugely disappointed when a developer put up another tower in front years later.

The city’s financial statements were put out late last Friday afternoon (hmmmmm, what could this mean?) with lots of interesting bits in them. Did you know the city has provided a $12-million line of credit to the PNE? I didn’t but there it is in the statements. Or that the city collected almost $40 million more in taxes in 2009 than in 2008. That’s a hefty jump. That was almost entirely to pay for the increase in costs in policing ($15 million), general government ($17 million) and fire protection ($5 million), as every other sector of city government stayed mostly the same or decreased.

But of course the most fascinating section for us city-hall junkies is the Olympic village (pages 23/24), where we learn:

- the private developer Millennium Developments owes the city $710 million as of March 26, 2010 ($15 million more than on Dec. 31, 2009 — how that interest piles up quickly). That’s, of course, just for the construction loan. It also still owes $170 million for the land that it bought back in 2006.

- Millennium got a $1.5 million bonus for on-time delivery of the village to the Games

- the city is paying only .8 per cent interest on $480 million of the money it borrowed from banks to relend to Millennium, but is charging Millennium somewhere between four and eight per cent, depending on how long the loan goes on — that spread is a guarantee for the city that it will get its money even if not all the condos sell, according to the statements.

- and final fun fact: the city expects to see $200 million in deposits put down on the 500 condos that remain to be sold at the village. That would be as of May 15, when condo marketer Bob Rennie is going to launch a new sales phase with a “street of dreams” marketing campaign. As the mayor said so poignantly prior to the Games, “Go Bob go.”

But I don’t get why even the NY Times can’t get some basic things right. The taxpayers are not carrying $1 billion in debt for the village, at least not the way the NY Times has written it, as though this is a bill we have to pay off over the next 30 years.

They may carry some debt if the condos don’t sell for enough, but not $1 billion. Likely not even $100 million. And why do they write that the real-estate industry came up with the plan for the Olympic village? That was the city’s dream from day one. The city assembled that land, committed itself to building a village for VANOC, and sold it off to the highest bidder.

Don’t be celebrating too quickly. Even the city’s chief real-estate optimist is not willing to say anything of the sort, as I document in my latest story on the always-interesting village finances in today’s Globe. It’s going to be close call, according to Bob Rennie and many others. Likely the Maleks will have to sell off the retail components of the village, plus the 110 units that were supposed to be rental apartments to make the numbers come out even at the end of the balance sheet.

Others I’ve talked to said that the developers will likely make a very small profit or take a small loss. But before you start saving your pennies to pay for the shortfall, one interesting thing to remember — even if there is a small loss, the city of Vancouver is still making money on the loan since it’s charging the Maleks more interest than what it’s paying out to its lender.

Millennium Water Construction Quality

Vancouver, BC – The Millennium Water consultant group and the general contractors are in the process of evaluating the current commentary regarding the quality of construction on the Olympic and Paralympic Village Project which has to-date been, in the consultant team’s opinion, above industry standards.

The Olympic Village is nearing completion and as such there are multiple and varied activities across the project. The work of the sub-trades is coordinated by the General Contractors and is subject to extensive review by the professional design team. The work in progress is governed by the architectural and engineering drawings and specifications which define the quality, durability and energy performance of the materials and systems installed. This work is further governed by both municipal and industry standards.

All work undertaken on the Olympic and Paralympic Village site is subject to a rigorous and stringent process of field reviews.  The professional engineering and architectural consultants are charged, under the Vancouver Building bylaw, with providing such reviews in support of the Letters of Assurance that each design professional is required to issue at the completion of the work – prior to being granted Occupancy by the City of Vancouver Inspectors.  These reviews are undertaken for each building and are carried out by the professionals and other parties, including:

*         The Trade Field Supervisors
*         The General Contractor Superintendents
*         The Code Compliance Certified Professional
*         The Building Envelope Consultant
*         The Mechanical and Electrical Engineers, and
*         The Architects.

The professional consultants are providing essentially full time attendance on site to facilitate the quality and schedule requirements associated with the project.

Work in progress does not proceed forward until all parties noted have completed their field reviews and the work has met the technical requirements of the specifications.

The consultant team issues photo-records of all field reviews with the appropriate written observations. In the example cited in the recent news story, the items identified have been acknowledged in previously issued field reviews submitted to the General Contractor by the Mechanical Engineer.  The process to remedy such issues is an acknowledged aspect of building construction where the professional consultant team acts on behalf of the public to assess compliance with both the City of Vancouver and Provincial Building Standards.

The consultant team will undertake an additional review of the work in progress to assess the issues identified and to confirm that the project specifications are being met by all contractors and trades on the site.

The latest is this story in the Province, with complaints about the building practices going on. It’s not unheard of on major projects for the drywallers to get ahead of the pipe-wrappers. In another project, no one would care. But now the village’s developers are going to have to take special measures to prove that there are only a few cases of this on site, not whole walls ful.

But I welcome comments from those who have a finer eye than mine at spotting interesting contractual agreements or strange clauses.

The reports are at vancouver.ca/olympicvillage-update.htm.