Canadian Commercial Real Estate Thread

[ue]

And the pompous Stratfordian makes his entrance, being even more presumptuous than the aptly named whippersnapper...

[240glt]

Originally Posted by rousseau

Wow, the hissy fits in this thread are amazing. Would any of the pearl-clutching homebodies afraid of Toronto care to explain just exactly how it could possibly not be of national interest that a major skyscraper bearing the name of the scariest, most dangerous and most idiotic president-to-be in U.S. history is about to be sold at a firesale price in the country's most important city?

Especially on a site like this? Is our Canadian regionalism so unhinged that this thread, of all things, gets "called out" for ostensibly stepping on the precious toes of people in Saskatchewan or wherever?

Hilarious.

Careful now, you're about to get an earful for calling Toronto the country's most important city

Yes folks on here are extremely sensitive

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally Posted by ue

And the pompous Stratfordian makes his entrance, being even more presumptuous than the aptly named whippersnapper...

Ah, yeah. The proverbial personal attacks. A clear sign your house of cards has toppled to reason.

I bleed SSP. You have no clue how much time I have invested in building one side of this site. I'm still not oblivious that urbantoronto's dollars will win out on the local end. What will you do then?

[rousseau]

I'm just wondering if this is the straw that breaks the camel's back. Maybe the U.S. electorate will finally wake up and think: "Crikey, if one of Trump's businesses is linked to an overvalued building in Toronto, maybe he's not the business genius he claims he is, and maybe voting for him was a mistake after all."

This could have international ramifications. It could go down in history as the Toronto Tower Incident that turned the world back from the brink. I'm thinking that impeachment is a given now.

This might even stop Brexit.

[TorontoDrew]

Originally Posted by dleung

This looks like my grandmother's living room.

LOL so funny.

[geotag277]

The building seemed to be a boondoggle from the beginning and it seems the topic is actually quite boring. A product which didn't have the appeal to sell reasonable numbers during preconstruction went ahead anyway and now, surprise surprise, the entity holding the ball of these unsold units is in receivership.

As much as the Trump haters would love to tie this to the man himself, it actually has very little to do with Trump himself, as he laughs all the way to the bank by charging exorbitant branding fees to these inept developers who somehow get hundreds of millions of financing but don't have the financial sense to understand that if you don't sell during preconstruction you probably shouldn't build it.

As such, I find the heated discussion about what the appropriate section is for this thread to be somehow more entertaining than the topic itself.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by geotag277

The building seemed to be a boondoggle from the beginning and it seems the topic is actually quite boring. A product which didn't have the appeal to sell reasonable numbers during preconstruction went ahead anyway and now, surprise surprise, the entity holding the ball of these unsold units is in receivership.

As much as the Trump haters would love to tie this to the man himself, it actually has very little to do with Trump himself, as he laughs all the way to the bank by charging exorbitant branding fees to these inept developers who somehow get hundreds of millions of financing but don't have the financial sense to understand that if you don't sell during preconstruction you probably shouldn't build it.

As such, I find the heated discussion about what the appropriate section is for this thread to be somehow more entertaining than the topic itself.

Yeah, I was just about to go and to point out to rousseau that Trump was only a very minor player in this "deal".

If you want to find examples of Trump business failures, you have ample choice, but this isn't near the top. And past failures didn't prevent him from getting elected, so, no chance of this having any impact on anything.

[geotag277]

I always found the vilification of Trump's minor failures to be rather absurd in any case. As if entrepreneurship is not fraught with risk taking and failure, and furthermore, it ignores the elephant in the room that he does have vast amounts of wealth accrued through a long history of obvious financial success.

Not to mention, some of his business failures, even if he invests millions of dollars, are the financial equivalent of the average person investing 1% of their net worth in a lottery ticket. It's a total write off and barely a blip on the radar compared to the vast amounts of real estate assets he is managing and generating revenue from.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by rousseau

Wow, the hissy fits in this thread are amazing. Would any of the pearl-clutching homebodies afraid of Toronto care to explain just exactly how it could possibly not be of national interest that a major skyscraper bearing the name of the scariest, most dangerous and most idiotic president-to-be in U.S. history is about to be sold at a firesale price in the country's most important city?

Especially on a site like this? Is our Canadian regionalism so unhinged that this thread, of all things, gets "called out" for ostensibly stepping on the precious toes of people in Saskatchewan or wherever?

Hilarious.

I agree. The troubles and travails of this building made news across the country, no doubt because of the horrifying election across the border. It's national, deal with it folks.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by geotag277

I always found the vilification of Trump's minor failures to be rather absurd in any case. As if entrepreneurship is not fraught with risk taking and failure, and furthermore, it ignores the elephant in the room that he does have vast amounts of wealth accrued through a long history of obvious financial success.

Not to mention, some of his business failures, even if he invests millions of dollars, are the financial equivalent of the average person investing 1% of their net worth in a lottery ticket. It's a total write off and barely a blip on the radar compared to the vast amounts of real estate assets he is managing and generating revenue from.

I tend to agree. Much better to focus on his major failures and significant personality disorders.

[geotag277]

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

I tend to agree. Much better to focus on his major failures and significant personality disorders.

To take things a step further, I always find the obsession with "major failures" in the political realm to be rather absurd. What were Peter Thiel's major failures? Which technology companies did he lose the most money on? I doubt even 1% of the those involved in the technology industry would be able to answer, or even care to know. The fact is, the only thing that matters is Paypal, Facebook, and his other successful ventures.

Only in the dishonest, disingenuous gotcha filled world of politics is the focus flipped to highlight any possible historical failure, no matter how absurd in context.

Finally, it is all too lazy to name call and use sensationalist extremist language such as "personality disorder" to describe politicians who dare to deviate in their behaviour from the expected manufactured politician image. People said it about Obama. People said it about Harper. People say it about Trudeau. People say it about Trump. Just lazy vacuous personal attacks whose gossip laden rhetoric's unimaginative character is only matched by the cyclical partisan robotic way it is repeated against "the other guy" every time there is a shuffling of the chairs in the white house.

I can understand those under the age of 30 who fall for these political games hook line and sinker, but I scratch my head at those who have the patience to play these games over and over and over every 4 or 5 years for literally decades on end.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by geotag277

To take things a step further, I always find the obsession with "major failures" in the political realm to be rather absurd. What were Peter Thiel's major failures? Which technology companies did he lose the most money on? I doubt even 1% of the those involved in the technology industry would be able to answer, or even care to know. The fact is, the only thing that matters is Paypal, Facebook, and his other successful ventures.

Only in the dishonest, disingenuous gotcha filled world of politics is the focus flipped to highlight any possible historical failure, no matter how absurd in context.

Finally, it is all too lazy to name call and use sensationalist extremist language such as "personality disorder" to describe politicians who dare to deviate in their behaviour from the expected manufactured politician image. People said it about Obama. People said it about Harper. People say it about Trudeau. People say it about Trump. Just lazy vacuous personal attacks whose gossip laden rhetoric's unimaginative character is only matched by the cyclical partisan robotic way it is repeated against "the other guy" every time there is a shuffling of the chairs in the white house.

I can understand those under the age of 30 who fall for these political games hook line and sinker, but I scratch my head at those who have the patience to play these games over and over and over every 4 or 5 years for literally decades on end.

You actually think that Donald Trump DOESN'T have a personality disorder? I am astonished. The reason I think it's worthy of focus is because we are entering a time when it could have massive impacts on all of us, which is scary when you can't do anything much to mitigate.

[niwell]

Originally Posted by geotag277

Finally, it is all too lazy to name call and use sensationalist extremist language such as "personality disorder" to describe politicians who dare to deviate in their behaviour from the expected manufactured politician image.

Just when I am agreeing with some of things you are saying...

To me it's baffling to think that Trump doesn't have some form of personality disorder. Just look at his twitter account or watch that dumpster fire of a "press conference" he held the other day. I mean, it's precisely the reason a lot of people like him but hard to deny. It was being said longggggg before he entered the realm of politics too.

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally Posted by geotag277

I always found the vilification of Trump's minor failures to be rather absurd in any case. As if entrepreneurship is not fraught with risk taking and failure, and furthermore, it ignores the elephant in the room that he does have vast amounts of wealth accrued through a long history of obvious financial success.

Not to mention, some of his business failures, even if he invests millions of dollars, are the financial equivalent of the average person investing 1% of their net worth in a lottery ticket. It's a total write off and barely a blip on the radar compared to the vast amounts of real estate assets he is managing and generating revenue from.

Minor?

Why shouldn't we expect a higher standard from individuals that through their investment affect so many lives? How many jobs were lost the first time he severely over leveraged himself forcing the banks to write off nearly half a billion dollars. How many jobs were ended the next time he pulled it off. Sorry, but he's a dick to use his privileged status and continue to shield himself through scale while making super risky decisions all the while he flies around on his bloated jet. He sucks at business. He's an expert at manipulating the systems though. Unfortunately, he's far from the only one out there to use his inherited wealth and connections so you do have a point. On the other hand, He chose to be in the spotlight and is now president of United States of America.

That said, how often is the name attached to the building also the landlord? This tower was built by billionaire Alex Snaider who makes Trump look like a angel

[Pinus]

Is there not a Toronto section to place this local Toronto story in?

I personally don't see how this has any relevance in St. John's or Halifax or Quebec City or Montreal or Thunder Bay or Winnipeg or Regina or Edmonton or Kamloops or Victoria or Whitehorse or Yellowknife or Iqaluit or...?

[SignalHillHiker]

The Trump angle strikes me as being of national... well, not importance, but at least interest. We all know who Trump is and have an opinion of him, and at least for me it's pleasing to know hopefully our largest city won't have his stamp on it.

[Blader]

Originally Posted by SignalHillHiker

The Trump angle strikes me as being of national... well, not importance, but at least interest. We all know who Trump is and have an opinion of him, and at least for me it's pleasing to know hopefully our largest city won't have his stamp on it.

You're right and it also has International interest as well. Albeit, not front page.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/insid...ry?id=44416694

[koops65]

Before the election, both Trump Towers, in Toronto and Vancouver, made national headlines about how the owners wanted to distance themselves from the Trump name, and possibly re-name their building. So now here we are, months later, and the subject is again in the news... and BTW, the original story I posted was national news, not local...

[koops65]

Originally Posted by Pinus

Is there not a Toronto section to place this local Toronto story in?

I personally don't see how this has any relevance in St. John's or Halifax or Quebec City or Montreal or Thunder Bay or Winnipeg or Regina or Edmonton or Kamloops or Victoria or Whitehorse or Yellowknife or Iqaluit or...?

First of all, this is a skyscraper site. It is damn relevant to talk about a very tall (second place) Canadian building IMO.
Second, none of the cities you named have a tower as tall as Trump Toronto, though Edmonton's Stantec will be close. None of the cities you mentioned has a skyscraper with a name and brand that belongs to the US President. The building may be in Toronto, but the interest generated is national, even international.
Third, if you don't like a particular thread, why hang out there? Nobody is forcing you to join in a discussion that you apparently have no interest in...

[Mister F]

This thread has been hilarious to read, even more so now that our resident Trump apologists have joined the fray.