A Vancouver real estate consultant said the province will likely lose millions on its purchase of a notorious single-room occupancy (SRO) building in the Granville Entertainment District, which continues to house one tenant a month and a half after the B.C. government promised to close it down.
The province, through BC Housing, paid well above the assessed value for the 110-room Howard Johnson Hotel at 1176 Granville Street, as part of a long-term plan to build a mix of affordable homes.
According to a June 24, 2020 news release, the B.C. government paid approximately $55 million to purchase the former hotel and the “neighbouring development site”.
At the time, the combined assessed value of 1176 Granville Street and the adjacent parking lot included in the deal was $38.6 million.
Today, both sites are assessed at approximately $27.5 million.
“I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume the province will lose about half of what they paid for this property,” said urban planner and retired architect Michael Geller.
Geller said governments often pay more than properties are worth when they intend to use the real estate to create supportive housing, in this case, the Luugat SRO.
“When I say the province is losing half, what I’m really saying is the taxpayers of British Columbia are losing half of what was spent on this building,” Geller said in an interview. “And that ignores all the other costs that have been associated with it over the years.”
After six years as supportive housing, several fires and more than 200 floods soaking Alan Goodall’s Aura nightclub on the ground floor, the Luugat SRO building was recently assessed at $22.2 million.
“Right after 2020, it really took a nosedive,” Goodall told Global News Tuesday. “It’s a little disheartening, it’s a bit of a slap on the face of Granville Street.”
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The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) said taxpayers got a really bad deal on the purchase of the property, and are left to cover the difference since the B.C. government spent far above the assessed value.
“When British Columbians are struggling with tax hikes and the rising cost of living, we can’t afford for government to lose this much money mismanaging a project,” CTF BC director Carson Binda told Global News.
“I do think from a financial point of view, the taxpayers have been hosed,” added Vancouver mayor Ken Sim.
The former Granville Strip hotel has seen thousands of police and fire calls and been the subject of numerous street disorder complaints since it began housing people from encampments during COVID-19.
Sim said from a social outcome perspective of taking care of individuals and vulnerable populations, the supportive housing has not been successful.
“What were really looking for from the provincial government is stop repeating failed policies and mistakes,” the city’s mayor told Global News in an interview. “Let’s give people the housing that they need.”
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The BC Conservative critic for Mental Health, Addictions, and Social Housing said she can’t imagine what justified the province paying $16 million over the assessed value for the Luugat property.
Claire Rattée said the taxpayer-funded asset was not taken care of during its tenure as an SRO, and proper supports were not in place for vulnerable residents.
“Government chose not to act and now the building will likely have to be demolished,” Rattée said Tuesday. “It’s incredibly frustrating, it’s a huge waste of taxpayer money and it’s a real disservice to the people that are desperately in need right now, of supportive housing.”
Goodall believes there are a lot of hidden costs including restoration fees for major water damage and the constant maintenance stemming from repeated fires and floods.
“I think that there’s probably more to this picture than just the decreased value of the building,” he told Global News Tuesday.
Former residents have claimed the Luugat SRO was destroyed in less than a year.
The province said BC Housing received an independent appraisal prior to purchasing 1176 and 1150 Granville Streets, and ended up buying both sites for less than the appraised value – which it did not disclose.
When asked if the SRO building would be torn down and if so, how it would justify the loss to taxpayers, the Ministry of Housing and Municipal Affairs said plans for the future use of the property are in development and “options will be considered in terms of what offers the best value for taxpayers”.
Geller said the site will likely be redeveloped but whether it becomes commercial or housing remains to be seen.
If it is transformed into rental housing, he said the former hotel property will be worth even less.
Several historical statues, particularly those depicting Canada’s first prime minister Sir John A. Macdonald and British monarchs, have been removed, toppled, or put into storage across Canada. A statue of Egerton Ryerson in Toronto at Ryerson University (now Toronto Metropolitan University) was toppled by protesters in June 2021. The statue of Edward Cornwallis aka the founder of Halifax was removed by the city council in 2018. The statues of Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II were pulled down and toppled from their pedestals outside the Manitoba Legislative Building in Winnipeg on Canada day in 2021. A statue of the British explorer James Cook was pulled down and thrown into the harbor in Victoria, BC in 2021. Gassy Jack aka Jack Deighton’s statue in Vancouver’s Gastown district was toppled in February 2022 due to his historical marriage to a 12-year-old girl
Several historical statues, particularly those depicting Canada’s first prime minister Sir John A. Macdonald and British monarchs, have been removed, toppled, or put into storage across Canada. A statue of Egerton Ryerson in Toronto at Ryerson University (now Toronto Metropolitan University) was toppled by protesters in June 2021. The statue of Edward Cornwallis aka the founder of Halifax was removed by the city council in 2018. The statues of Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II were pulled down and toppled from their pedestals outside the Manitoba Legislative Building in Winnipeg on Canada day in 2021. A statue of the British explorer James Cook was pulled down and thrown into the harbor in Victoria, BC in 2021. Gassy Jack aka Jack Deighton’s statue in Vancouver’s Gastown district was toppled in February 2022 due to his historical marriage to a 12-year-old girl
Several historical statues, particularly those depicting Canada’s first prime minister Sir John A. Macdonald and British monarchs, have been removed, toppled, or put into storage across Canada. A statue of Egerton Ryerson in Toronto at Ryerson University (now Toronto Metropolitan University) was toppled by protesters in June 2021. The statue of Edward Cornwallis aka the founder of Halifax was removed by the city council in 2018. The statues of Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II were pulled down and toppled from their pedestals outside the Manitoba Legislative Building in Winnipeg on Canada day in 2021. A statue of the British explorer James Cook was pulled down and thrown into the harbor in Victoria, BC in 2021. Gassy Jack aka Jack Deighton’s statue in Vancouver’s Gastown district was toppled in February 2022 due to his historical marriage to a 12-year-old girl
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
The Jay-2 personality has gotten so upset, with 2 responses in a row, and now he’s signing off! The manager at McDonald’s passed him some Monopoly money and told him “here’s $5000 for all your hard work.” Look, he’s even taking his blow-up doll that he stole from a chug’s tent out on a date. Have fun Jay-2! 🤣🤣
Anyways I’m going to go enjoy my weekend here in beautiful Vancouver. I just made a 5k paycheck here at my “Mcjob” and it’s time to go spend some money! My very white girlfriend is waiting for me. Have fun being me on the internet. Too bad you can’t be me in person hey buddy LOL
Apparently now Anonymous has another personality even though I posted under that name by accident 😂😂😂😂
Damn being a white trash warrior must be a very sad and frustrating thing to be. Just swarming my every word like a fly on shlt
The Jay-2 personality is reading all my replies and getting trigerred and pretending he hasn’t read them. I really hope he doesn’t start punching the bathroom stall walls at our McDonald’s job again. That was embarassing.
Even funnier I’m not even reading any of your posts buddy. You’re spending all of your time and effort typing out your inbred white trash rage posts and I’m not even reading them 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Check it out. My other personality managed to pull up some historical stuff about when there was a peak time of liberal morons vandalizing Canadian heritage. It doesn’t happen anymore, especially now that the main enabler Justin is out of the picture. It peaked years ago and even has its own Wikipedia page (“Monuments and memorials in Canada removed in 2020–2022”). Normalcy is slowly returning now, even though we still have an incompetent government. You know what else has died off, all the B S about Residential School graveyards. Did the chugs really think they could start a new cash cow from that? They’re total morons of course. Too funny!
Several historical statues, particularly those depicting Canada’s first prime minister Sir John A. Macdonald and British monarchs, have been removed, toppled, or put into storage across Canada. A statue of Egerton Ryerson in Toronto at Ryerson University (now Toronto Metropolitan University) was toppled by protesters in June 2021. The statue of Edward Cornwallis aka the founder of Halifax was removed by the city council in 2018. The statues of Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II were pulled down and toppled from their pedestals outside the Manitoba Legislative Building in Winnipeg on Canada day in 2021. A statue of the British explorer James Cook was pulled down and thrown into the harbor in Victoria, BC in 2021. Gassy Jack aka Jack Deighton’s statue in Vancouver’s Gastown district was toppled in February 2022 due to his historical marriage to a 12-year-old girl
Isn’t it funny how Canada is 68% white yet the history of the white settlers is slowly being erased in Canada. Future generations of Canadians will be taught in school that the white settlers were filthy liars that stoIe the land from the First Nations people. In other words they’ll be taught the truth and once all of the fabricated white trash history is erased it’s never coming back. 😊👍
Hahaha And just how many did I fool with that last one? This was all w oke stuff that began dying off when Justin quit. He had been egging it on. Curriculum isn’t changing, nobody’s renaming anything nor pulling down statues in gastown anymore. I don’t hear the Land Acknowedgement B S as much anymore, when a few years ago it seemed like it was a prayer before meetings. You never hear the chugs crying about their supposed Residential School gravesites, which nobody believes anymore. No new cash cow coming from there! If you’re a chug, you’re a loser. Always have been and always will be. Amen! 🤣🤣🤣
There’s nothing better than seeing the renaming of public spaces, the removal of statues of early European leaders, and ongoing shifts in school curricula. The European settlers will always be remembered as lying thieves just like the Alberta separatists and their pathetic attempt at stealing Alberta from Canada.
I’m just joking. Nothing is being erased.
Future students will continue to be taught history just like they are now. Canada became a real nation, embracing technology, modern medicine, sanitation, and other usefull concepts after europeans landed and put the warring chugs in their place. Chugs will never have the opportunity to falsify history, because history is written by the winners, not the losers. Chugs will always know their place – selling booze and drugs to kids, being constantly drunk, living in tents and reserves, beating their women, filling up jails, etc.
Isn’t it funny how Canada is 68% white yet the history of the white settlers is slowly being erased in Canada. Future generations of Canadians will be taught in school that the white settlers were filthy liars that stole the land from the First Nations people. In other words they’ll be taught the truth and once all of the fabricated white trash history is erased it’s never coming back. 😊👍
I’m just joking. Nothing is being erased.
Future students will continue to be taught history just like they are now. Canada became a real nation, embracing technology, modern medicine, sanitation, and other usefull concepts after europeans landed and put the warring chugs in their place. Chugs will never have the opportunity to falsify history, because history is written by the winners, not the losers. Chugs will always know their place – selling booze and drugs to kids, being constantly drunk, living in tents and reserves, beating their women, filling up jails, etc.
No longer have any tenant living there. This building can be torn down and remodeling for a starts level of classic hotel.
Isn’t it funny how Canada is 68% white yet the history of the white settlers is slowly being erased in Canada. Future generations of Canadians will be taught in school that the white settlers were filthy liars that stole the land from the First Nations people. In other words they’ll be taught the truth and once all of the fabricated white trash history is erased it’s never coming back 😊👍
My other Jay personality (I have multiple personality disorder) managed to only get triggerred enough to respond two times in a row. He/we are getting better! Oh, and I just looked it up – while chugs (some might call them First Nations, Métis, and Inuit) only make up about 5% of Canada’s total population, they account for roughly 23% to 25% of people accused of crimes in criminal courts and about 32% to 42% of individuals in correctional custody. That’s because they’re all uneducated idiots who can’t do anything with their lives despite having all these economical benefits over everyone else. We could save so much money if we just eliminated them all. Asides from being decent drug suppliers and occasionally sucking my hog, they’re wastes of skin.
“A man deemed a high-risk sex offender is facing new charges in Langley.
Michael Wayne Carpenter was charged with trespassing after a person spotted a stranger in their backyard in the Willoughby area on the night of Aug. 12.
Carpenter was released, and five days later he was arrested again after a person reported a stranger in their apartment suite on 64th Avenue.”
Of course it’s a white guy
“JV
August 20, 2026 at 5:12 pm
Damn, I just looked it up, and Canada is 70% white, and the government just slammed the door on immigrants too. I guess all the crack I take made me think it was still hundreds of years ago, with chugs still ruinning around scalping themselves for beaver pelts and the rights to f *uck deer up the azz etc etc. Actually, they still kinda do that don’t they. I see some street tents up ahead, i’ll go ask….”
LOL you care so much about every little thing I have to say. You’re so f**king stupid you don’t even realize that I’m just baiting you so I can watch you freak out and post a bunch of triggered buIIshit. It’s seriously the funniest thing ever. I’m almost 100% confident you’re actually a mentally handicapped person living in his mom’s trailer 🤣🤣
Damn, I just looked it up, and Canada is 70% white, and the government just slammed the door on immigrants too. I guess all the crack I take made me think it was still hundreds of years ago, with chugs still ruinning around scalping themselves for beaver pelts and the rights to f *uck deer up the azz etc etc. Actually, they still kinda do that don’t they. I see some street tents up ahead, i’ll go ask….
Canada will never be a white country ever again 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
I was just sucking off this chug in an alley off Granville, and he started kinda screaming “I got to pee” but I swear I heard him say “I’m the NDP!” I feel sorry for those losers. I don’t think any government will ver take them serious. Really, they should have all been killed off by the Europeans. I mean, they were just killing each other anyway. We almost pulled it off with the Residential schools. So close! Too funny!
Eby and the NDP are simply incompetent…. He has literally done nothing while in office.
HE is a colossal failure
“Doug Brekfaust
August 20, 2026 at 8:16 am
Anyone actually surprised?
It is the NDP after all.
How else can a group rack up billions in debt with less than nothing to show for it.”
Still better than the NAZl f**king scumbags that you support
“Jay Voorhees
August 20, 2026 at 12:43 am
Yes, i’m a triggerred little butt pirate as I had no clue that the NDP were in the sh itters for voting intention. I wonder if I fooled any of you by my useless attempt to trivialize the findings of Canada’s largest and most successfull poll aggregator. Probably nobody! I guess it’s back to my usual evening of self-flaggelating myself over White Guilt, and the next school lesson via TikTok. After that i’ll punch the walls till i’m bleeding, then go suck the co cks of some neighbourhood homeless chugs. Too funny!”
Lol you sound like an angry little white boy with a small c0ck that never gets laid. Oh wait because that’s exactly what you are. Even funnier you go on the internet and impersonate people just so they can laugh at you. Damn it has to suck being you 🤣🤣
Easy fix , just take it out of their salary’s , their the ones that screwed up . There is far too much of this going on … no consequences for all their screw-ups
Bah, what’s a few more million pissed away with the NDPers? All in a days theft of tax dollars hey? Throw it away on this garbage instead of actually building an institution for these folks who need help. The usual backassward thinking of these creeps.
Anyone actually surprised?
It is the NDP after all.
How else can a group rack up billions in debt with less than nothing to show for it.
You mean to say the taxpayer not the government cuz at the end of the day the taxpayer is the one that fits the bill the government just blows the money on stupid things like the sros and the drug crisis and the homeless people and everything else that’s wrong with this province and this country just a nightmare sending our money abroad this is just out of control money to sedan money to Brazil money to Pakistan money to Ukraine money to who knows where it’s going what a scam what a fraud this government is this country is a fraud this province of British Columbia as a fraud what a nightmare so sad
Yes, i’m a triggerred little butt pirate as I had no clue that the NDP were in the sh itters for voting intention. I wonder if I fooled any of you by my useless attempt to trivialize the findings of Canada’s largest and most successfull poll aggregator. Probably nobody! I guess it’s back to my usual evening of self-flaggelating myself over White Guilt, and the next school lesson via TikTok. After that i’ll punch the walls till i’m bleeding, then go suck the co cks of some neighbourhood homeless chugs. Too funny!
“Anonymous Doug Brekfaust
August 19, 2026 at 4:56 pm
That’s the NDP for you.
No wonder 338Canada now has the seat projections 54 to 37 in favour of the Cons, and an 83% chance of Cons winning. Just shoot yourself, Eby.”
Lol you’re so f**king desperate it’s hilarious. As an aggregator, 338Canada is only as good as the individual polls it feeds on. If baseline polling firms miscalculate or miss systemic shifts, the aggregate model will reflect those errors. A seat projection or percentage chance is a snapshot in time, not a prophecy. Low-probability events can and do happen, and models cannot predict last-minute campaign shocks, sudden scandals, or late voter turnout swings. Just shoot yourself Doug
Figure it out Government, these people continue to milk the system and we are FED UP!
That’s the NDP for you.
No wonder 338Canada now has the seat projections 54 to 37 in favour of the Cons, and an 83% chance of Cons winning. Just shoot yourself, Eby.