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City-Millennium bargaining went to deadline on how much developer should hand over besides Oly village

November 17th, 2010 · 57 Comments

Here’s my more complete story in the Globe on what transpired today (and the days leading up to it) related to the Olympic village moving into receivership. But these 700 words have a hard time capturing everything that has been happening in this incredibly complex deal. (A sample of how badly it’s going to be […]

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City expects $200 million from Olympic village condo deposits this year

April 20th, 2010 · 14 Comments

I never imagined, when I was spending my 20s studying the contemporary French novel, that I would enjoy reading financial statements as much as I do. But it turns out they’re just as fun as Boris Vian or Michel Butor, in their own way, like seeing where the millions go at the city. The city’s […]

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Latest snapshot of Olympic village finances

April 19th, 2009 · 4 Comments

Last year, the city’s financial statements came out and no one paid attention to the paragraph buried deep inside saying that the city had provided a loan guarantee of $190 million for the private developers of the Olympic village. Even councillors didn’t notice it. It’s quite a different picture this year, where the statements detail […]

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A visit with the two brothers building the Olympic village

March 29th, 2009 · 4 Comments

Here’s my latest column in Vancouver magazine, where I got to spend some time with Peter and Shahram Malek of Millennium Developments — the developers at ground zero in the current financial/housing/Olympics twister. Everyone in town has been playing backseat driver to these two and speculation continues to be rampant about the end cost of […]

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Former councillor Jim Green hired to help on Olympic village

January 27th, 2009 · 10 Comments

I see my former Sun buddy Jeff Lee was the first to get this story in print about Jim Green being hired by Millennium Developments to help out with the Olympic village and possibly other projects of theirs. Of course, the sub-text is that this must be about Jim, who helped started the Vision Vancouver […]

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The Coles notes on today’s Olympic village episode

January 21st, 2009 · 18 Comments

You can read news stories with complete paragraphs in other media if you want. (My pal Rod Mickleburgh was covering for the Globe today, and pretty much everyone else was there in force.) Here’s my take on what was new and interesting, beyond the basic news that the city is gearing up to go and […]

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Deconstructing the in-camera meeting minutes for the Olympic village

January 17th, 2009 · 12 Comments

My pal Jeff Lee over at the Sun had an interesting story in Friday’s Vancouver Sun with details about the in-camera meeting back in June 2007 where the Non-Partisan Association majority voted in favour of the $193-million loan guarantee and completion guarantee for Fortress, so that Millennium could get its financing for the Olympic village. […]

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More details, public and private, from the Olympic village scrums

January 10th, 2009 · 55 Comments

If everyone could just PLEASE REMAIN CALM. As unpopular as this might be to say right now, I’d just like to warn everyone that there’s nothing more dangerous or potentially uninformative as a media pack in full pursuit of a crisis. Everyone scrambles to find a detail that’s worse than what the last guy/gal just […]

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News on Olympic village coming imminently

January 9th, 2009 · 2 Comments

The city of Vancouver has called a “technical briefing” for media on the Olympic village for 2 p.m., followed by a statement from Mayor Gregor Robertson at 3:30 p.m. This hastily organized conference is apparently in response to Miro Cernetig’s anonymously sourced story in The Vancouver Sun today, where the key piece of new information […]

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Olympic village review will look at city’s options for project

December 16th, 2008 · 4 Comments

More on what the review by KPMG will provide answers to, with lots of comments by new councillor Geoff Meggs.

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