Vancouver developer faces 4th project ordered for sale to repay lender

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A Vancouver developer has had all four of its residential projects ordered put up for sale so it can repay lenders after running into delays and financial trouble.

Align Properties’ projects were being developed as residential condo towers in the West End and the Cambie Street corridor, and its latest, a low-rise, market-rental development, is also on the city’s west side.

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Align Properties, formerly known as Vivagrand Development Corp., describes itself as being part of the Xiangli Group, a real estate developer in Guangzhou, China.

Align was developing two six-storey rental buildings with 120 units on four parcels of land on Baillie Street, near Oakridge Centre.

According to court filings ordering the sale, Richmond-based Amber Mortgage Investment Corporation lent a principal amount of $5.3 million in October 2021. Align submitted a rezoning application in the same month and received approval from Vancouver city council in July 2022.

The loan came due in November 2023, but when Align failed to pay, Amber went to court. In May 2024, the amount owed increased to more than $5.9 million with interest, according to court documents.

Last week, a marketing listing for those four parcels of land was posted as a court-ordered sale. Align will pay the outstanding loan to Amber with the proceeds from the sale.

The listing is for $22 million and consists of four single-family home lots, each assessed at about $4.5 million for a total of over $17 million.

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In February, Align’s project at 1555 Robson St. was listed for sale when lenders turned to the courts after not receiving loan payments. Court documents in July 2023 stated that Align, which was then operating as Vivagrand, owed more than $41 million. The company paid over $79 million in October 2017 for the site and had been trying to develop a 28-storey condo tower with 177 residential units.

In March, Align’s project at 1485 Davie St. was listed for sale after lenders were owed over $37 million and the court said they could sell the property to recover the amount owed. Vivagrand had bought that site in 2016 for $36.5 million to build a 22-storey building with 120 units and a six-storey low-rise building with 51 affordable-housing rental units.

Align’s property at 5812-5844 Cambie St., slated for a 33-storey residential tower and 12-storey office across from Oakridge Centre, was listed on the market in March after a lender started court proceedings. There is no asking price, but the assessed value of the property is over $85 million.

In 2017, when Align was known as Vivagrand, it abruptly cancelled a presale condo project in the Cambie Street corridor and sold the site, leaving more than 70 buyers, who had locked into contracts for two years, with only their deposits.

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This week, a half-finished townhome project with 17 units on Park Drive in Marpole owned by Centred Developments was placed into receivership. In February, a high-rise condo project in Coquitlam by the same company was ordered for sale after foreclosure proceedings.

jlee-young@postmedia.com

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