Bear Mountain looks for suitor in push to complete resort
Bear Mountain Resort is for sale.
Ecoasis, which bought Bear Mountain in 2013, has hired the company Jones Lang LaSalle to review the resort’s assets and to find a buyer or a partner.
“That’s probably what the end result will be,” said Ecoasis chief financial officer David Clarke.
“What we are doing with [JLL] is having them advise us on the best way to move the project forward.”
Clarke said with so much development still left to do at the site, it was determined that Ecoasis was not suited to tackle the job.
Bear Mountain, located atop Skirt Mountain in Langford and Highlands, includes two golf courses, a fitness centre, a hotel, bicycling trails and a large area devoted to housing, including single-family homes, townhouses and condos. Large areas haven’t been built on yet.
“We have another 2,500 doors to go here and Ecoasis [founder Dan Matthews] is an investor, not a real estate developer. The goal since acquisition was to create a platform for success here, to create Canada’s finest urban resort community,” Clarke said. “We thought this is the right time now to review who may be the best fit to see it through completion.”
Ecoasis bought Bear Mountain at a huge discount in 2013 from HSBC Bank Canada after the bank stepped in to take control from the previous owners, who were unable to meet loan payments.
Since taking over, Ecoasis has poured money into the two 18-hole Jack Nicklaus-designed golf courses, established Bear Mountain as the home of a number of national athletic teams, constructed a clay-court tennis facility, restarted development of two townhome projects and revamped a condominium project that’s now called Elevate.
When Ecoasis developed its master development plan, the vision was to expand the residential component into a community with 10,000 people over the next 15 years. It is now home to about 3,500 people.
“There’s a difference between believing in the vision of Bear Mountain and believing you are the person to see that vision through to the end,” Clarke said. “Bear Mountain is at a certain level today and needs to be at the next level, and that might require expertise we just don’t possess.”
In a statement, Matthews said the process of working with JLL has helped “uncover valuable insights about the current real estate landscape in Canada and will help us evaluate future opportunities.”
JLL has made note of Greater Victoria’s in-demand real estate market. “Bear Mountain represents a rare opportunity to acquire a world-class development project of significant scale with over 772 acres of irreplaceable land embedded in Canada’s finest urban resort community,” said JLL senior vice-president Jon Ramscar in a statement. “It represents one of the largest active development opportunities in Canada, with existing zoning and infrastructure in place for immediate development.”
There is no guarantee the site will be sold outright, Clarke said. “There are a hundred different scenarios that might play out,” and that could include a sale of all assets, an equity investment, or a partnership.
“It’s business as usual on the resort side,” he said.