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Rainbow secures financing, ownership changes

Project manager plans to begin snow removal on site
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Big Changes Bill Hayes, project manager for the Rainbow development, pictured on-site last spring, is confident the project will move ahead with financing in place. Photo by Alison Taylor.

Bank financing is finally in place for the long-awaited Rainbow employee housing development, ostensibly ending months of delays and speculation the project was dead.

According to project manager Bill Hayes, the financing means it’s full steam ahead for construction this spring.

“The money is now committed for the rest of the project,” he said this week.

“We have new money into the project and that has really allowed us to really start planning and executing the work.”

There has been little to no physical construction done on site for more than a year now, despite promises Whistler residents would be moving in throughout 2008. Hayes attributes the delay to the complexity of the project and the need for Rainbow’s developers to shop around and get the best financing deal at the banks.

“Until you have financing in place you can’t really make future commitments of any extent,” he said.

At the same time as the financing deal was sealed with the Royal Bank of Canada, a separate deal unfolded in which two of the five Rainbow partners sold to a third party.

Hayes would not comment on that third party other than to say that the principal of the firm is a senior investment banker with development experience in affordable housing.

“That person has experience and financial resources and will be a good asset to the Rainbow team,” said Hayes.

Two well-known and longtime locals are still actively involved in Rainbow — Rod Nadeau and Ann Chiasson.

The sale, however, puts an end to more than a decade-long partnership with five separate people, some from Whistler and the others from the Lower Mainland.

Local developer Don Wensley was one of the two partners to sell.

That wasn’t his first choice.

“I was prepared to stay in, if I was in charge of the project,” he said.

While it looked for a short time like that could happen, ultimately the decision was made to buy him out.

He said his cheque arrived on Tuesday.

Wensley has no hard feelings about the buy out and, in fact, he believes the new investor is the best thing to happen to Rainbow, given some of the issues that existed between the partners.

“Despite a few disagreements and harsh words — that’s part of business — I wish them well and I hope they’re very successful,” he said.

“The new investor, I believe, will give this thing direction and focus and I also think their engineer Bill Hayes is just about the best person that they could have as an inside consulting engineer on the project.”

The biggest challenge now, said Hayes, is getting the manpower and equipment mobilized on the project in the coming weeks. The construction industry in Whistler is booming as the resort readies for the 2010 Games. Major housing developments underway are the 250-home athletes’ village and Cressey’s upscale townhouse development at the entrance to White Gold, not to mention the millions of dollars in individual home and hotel renovations and municipal work on the go.

“Getting a commitment on the construction resources is our biggest challenge and we’re taking steps to try and lock in the resources right now,” said Hayes.

“The resources that we have been planning to use have been hanging in with us with the expectation that we would get financing.”

Discussions are also back on with two local building companies — Vision Pacific and Glacier Greek Construction, which has an ongoing project at the athletes’ village.

Hayes also said the municipality is being very proactive in helping the development cross the many hurdles involved in developing a neighbourhood subdivision from scratch.

“(They’re) really being very proactive to help us get the development going,” he said. “It’s quite unprecedented in my view.”

Rainbow became a political hot potato in the last election, with most councillors campaigning on the project. During the first two years of its term, however, council struggled with the project, in a tug of war with developers as both sides hammered out the details. Final approval of the bylaws came in June 2007 but work never resumed on site.

That’s not for a lack of the political will, said Councillor Ralph Forsyth, who has been outspoken in his support of the project and his worry that it may not come together.

He was not aware of the latest developments when contacted this week.

“I’m super excited,” he said. “I hope they put it together.”

He was not surprised to hear of the good working relationship between Rainbow’s developers and municipal staff.

“We told the staff ‘clear your desks, make this happen, there’s nothing more important.’”

Marla Zucht, general manager of the Whistler Housing Authority, met with Hayes last week for an update.

“It sounds like they’re putting all the pieces back in place, which is great,” said Zucht. “It’s encouraging and I think we all probably take it with a grain of salt here — we’ll believe it when we see it. Nevertheless, I want to be optimistic.”

The interest in the project is definitely still there from Whistler residents, hoping for a chance to buy a little resort real estate at non-market prices.

“People, I think, are waiting with baited breath to see what’s going to happen,” added Zucht.

The master waitlist for employee housing sits at 635 separate applications. Almost half of those applicants are on a separate waitlist for the Rainbow development — 231 for duplexes and 170 for single-family homes.

Those registered for duplexes have been pre-approved for mortgages between $320,000 to $400,000 while those on the single-family home list have been pre-approved for a minimum mortgage of $400,000.

The number of people pre-approved drops dramatically above the half million-dollar mark.

Hayes said: “We’re going to focus on delivering the best product that we can for a price that we know is in the range of the people on the waitlist.”

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