The mystery is deepening around the Ritz-Carlton Hotel development, where work abruptly stopped on Tuesday. Developer The Holborn Group is not talking. But City of Vancouver officials are still confident the $500 million project will go ahead.
The 60-storey project, which was to include a hotel and pricey condominiums, was approved for a downtown Vancouver site at Georgia Street and Bute in June of 2005.
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The existing derelict building was torn down, and excavating for the underground parkade was well underway when work suddenly stopped on Tuesday.
Now, there's nothing city hall can do to force the developer to restart construction.
The developer has a building permit, which remains in place for a period of at least six months after work has stopped.
Until then, the hole in the ground at Georgia and Bute could stay as it is and there could be more around the downtown core.
"I think anyone who had planned to move forward [is] sitting back to see if this global anxiety to settle down and rightly so they should,'' said Maureen Enserie, executive director of the Urban Development Institute.
"We also have to wait to see what the banks are going to do about lending requirements,'' she said. "So for sure, some projects are going to be put on hold."
The Ritz-Carlton is not the first project to have started and then stalled at Georgia and Bute.
Other projects at this site were put on hold and then never built
With a report by CTV British Columbia's Shannon Paterson.
