Trump Puts Name on Vancouver Project

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A hotel and condominium tower in Vancouver announced at a press conference today will be the second project in Canada to trumpet Donald Trump's brand.

The Trump International Hotel & Tower Vancouver will be developed by a joint venture of the Vancouver-based Holborn Group and the TA Global Group of Kuala Lumpur. The Trump Organization will manage and help market the condominiums, the Mr. Trump and the developers said at the press conference.

The only existing Trump project in Canada is the 63-story Trump International & Tower in Toronto, which opened last year.

The C$360 million ($350 million), 63-story tower on Georgia Street in Vancouver's downtown will feature 218 luxury residences and 147 hotel rooms. The twisting design was created by architect Arthur Erickson. Although no height was released, it was described as the second tallest tower in Vancouver, next to the Shangri-La.

It is the first major luxury residential project announced for Vancouver since the economic collapse of 2008. A Ritz Carlton development featuring Mr. Erickson's design was originally planned for the site, but was cancelled after the downturn.

"I don't believe in curses," Holborn chief executive Joo Kim Tiah said at the press conference. "We have worked really, really hard, we have taken our time, actually, to get this right ... we really did our homework analyzing what would really work."

Although development ground to a halt, Vancouver weathered the economic downturn better than most markets, in large part due to buyers from Asia. Between December 2008 and December 2009, when most markets in North America were languishing, the residential benchmark price tracked by the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver rose 16.2 percent to $562,463. Today it stands at $598,400, after a 4.2 percent drop from a year earlier.

The Trump tower is "an exceptional design and will be an important piece of our skyline as the second-tallest building after the Shangri-La, but the jury is out on whether the Trump brand will add to the economic viability of the project," former city planner Brent Toderian told the Globe and Mail.