CBC, the Huffington Post and other media may have jumped the gun on the weekend by reporting that Holborn Group has agreed to pay an undisclosed amount to put the Trump brand on its long-stalled development.
“We are flattered with the amount of attention that we have received from the media with regards to our project at 1151 West Georgia. However, we are currently not in a position to discuss the management or the branding of the subject property,” Holborn Group CEO Joo Kim Tiah told Business in Vancouver February 18.
“Rest assured that it will be a luxury operator and that we are working extremely hard to bring to life a project that the city [of] Vancouver will proudly embrace for many years. The project will set a new benchmark and we look forward to announcing the hotel operator in the coming weeks.”
One source at Holborn told BIV that no branding transaction for the project has yet closed.
Contracting to use the Trump brand on the property without any direct involvement from Donald Trump has spurred lawsuits at a similar project in Toronto.
Herbert Crockett, for example, launched a lawsuit in Ontario Superior Court in December alleging that he is “the victim of an investment scheme and conspiracy based on reckless and negligent misrepresentations” that included being led to believe that Trump would have direct involvement in Trump Toronto.
Developers of the project then threatened to sue buyers to get them to complete sale transactions.
The litigation in the slumping Toronto condominium market resembles lawsuits that involve Vancouver developers.
Several B.C.-based buyers of units in Toronto’s prestigious 66-storey Living Shangri-La Toronto condominium tower have filed lawsuits in the Supreme Court of British Columbia to try to get out of their pre-sale contract commitments.
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