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Vancouver city staff seek new lenders for Olympic Village

by Barry Artiste | January 21, 2009 at 05:57 am

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Barry Artiste Op/Ed
The City of Vancouver is actively seeking lenders in it's Billion Dollar Plus Olympic Albatross, called the Olympic Village, as Fortress Investments in New York have stated, they won't be fronting any more cash. The City of Vancouver accused of backroom secrecy, grandiose deals and incompetence in this failing project has a better chance of curing our homeless situation than getting anyone to pony up a MoneyPit. To the City of Vancouver I say, "Hey, Good Luck with That"!

The Olympic Athlete's Village project.Photograph by: Ian Lindsay, Vancouver Sun
VANCOUVER — Vancouver city staff want to start planning on financing the Olympic Village project directly after current lender Fortress Investment Group cut off funding to the developer.

A report written by director of finance Kenneth Bayne, made public Tuesday and to be considered by city council Thursday, requests authority to start talking with potential lenders “to put in place a flexible, revolving bank facility with a term of up to four years.”

Bayne compared such a bank facility to a line of credit. The city would also be able to explore issuing debentures.