‘WEST COAST VENICE’ NEVER CAME TO PASS
Sale of Expo lands became ‘almost like a spy thriller’
Thirty years ago, the B.C. government sold the Expo 86 site to Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing.
The Social Credit government initially said it received $320 million for the 82-hectare site on the north shore of False Creek. This included a $50 million down payment, and a series of payments as the site was developed.
But the NDP’s Bob Williams argued the real price was $130 million, because Li was making lump sum payments with no interest over an extended period of time. The government eventually admitted the deal was worth $145 million, less than half their original announcement.
The Expo site had become a political football after the Socreds decided to sell it to help jump-start a sluggish economy. There were three bidders: Li, Peter Toigo, a close friend of Socred Premier Bill Vander Zalm and a local group that included Jack Poole, Jimmy Pattison and Edgar Kaiser.
“It was viciously hot and heavy between Vander Zalm wanting to give a whole wack of provincially owned lands to Peter Toigo, and Grace McCarthy, who wanted the deal to go to Li Ka-shing,” said former B.C. Premier Mike Harcourt, who was Vancouver’s mayor during Expo 86.
“There were so many intriguing aspects to it, and so many rumours that flew around at the time, it was almost like a spy thriller.”
Indeed. On April 2, 1988, The Sun reported that Toigo had offered $500 million for all the lands owned by the government’s B.C. Enterprise Corp. (BCEC), which included the Expo lands and extensive holdings in Victoria, Whistler and 15 B.C. municipalities.
The NDP’s Williams quickly shot back that the BCEC land was worth $1 billion. Then the press discovered Vander Zalm’s principal secretary, David Poole, had arranged a private meeting for Toigo with BCEC staff, which drew sharp criticism from McCarthy.
The RCMP investigated the incident, but cleared Vander Zalm and David Poole, who was no relation to Jack Poole. Lost amid all the political fighting was the original design, which was quite something.
A photo from The Sun’s files shows a futuristic highrise forest surrounded by lagoons that turned much of the site into islands. A Sun headline dubbed it a “West Coast Venice,” and it was so alluring it was one of the reasons Li got the deal.
“The original plan was to bring a taste of the False Creek waterfront closer in to the city,” said the architect of the plan, Rick Hulbert.
“To do that, we suggested building a series of lagoons. The objective also was to clean up the creek through movement of water. We worked with engineers to make sure that would be the case. It was quite exciting.”
The city had reservations, however.
“The idea was to double the amount of waterfront for the enjoyment of everyone,” he said.
“In doing so, the land mass got pushed slightly into the existing False Creek, which was a concern to the city, they didn’t want the width of the creek to change. They felt it would be better to just maintain the shoreline that Expo 86 enjoyed.”
The city also thought building high-end highrises on islands connected by bridges might look like a gated community for the rich.
“It was felt that the original design appeared to be too exclusive … that that wasn’t in keeping with what Vancouver’s mission was, in terms of providing equal opportunity for everyone,” said Hulbert.
The lagoons were nixed and Hulbert came up with a new design.
“When the plan was approved, pretty much everything from the Granville Street Bridge up to the Cambie Bridge was built as originally designed and approved,” said Hulbert, 72, who is now retired from architecture but still teaches photography.
“But since that period there have been a fair bit of changes in terms of what’s happening east of the Cambie Bridge.”
According to the city’s North False Creek Official Development plan 15,070 people were living in the Concord lands in the 2016 census, spread out in 9,735 residential units in approximately 50 buildings. But that doesn’t include International Village, which was part of the original deal and was developed by Henderson Developments, not Concord.
Whether the government made money on the deal is debatable. The contract said the province was responsible for the environmental cleanup of the Expo lands, which had been rail yards and mills; Harcourt thinks the cleanup costs were $200 million.