Foreclosed Coromandel Site On Cambie To Be Sold For $26M After $69M Appraisal

The end is near for Coromandel Properties, who filed for creditor protection under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA) in February 2023 after finding itself in $700M of debt and whose properties have been foreclosed and put up for sale one after the other since then.

The latest is 7510 Cambie Street — at the intersection with West 59th Avenue, one block south of the Langara Golf Course in Vancouver — according to both a commercial real estate listing and a sale application filed in the Supreme Court of British Columbia that were obtained by STOREYS.

The property is occupied by a low-rise commercial building, a surface parking lot, and one single-family home, all of which are vacant according to the listing. BC Assessment values the property at $36,303,000, which is significantly higher than both the asking price for the property and the final sale price that was achieved.

Debt and Disposition

The foreclosure proceedings were initiated by both Jin-Ocean Mortgage lnvestment Corporation and Desjardins Financial Security Life Assurance Company, who each hold mortgages on the property, which is legally owned by Coromandel Cambie 59 BT Ltd. and beneficially owned by Coromandel Cambie 59 Limited Partnership and Coromandel Cambie 59 Developments Ltd. Other related corporate entities, their directors, and guarantors were also listed as respondents in both applications.

Jin-Ocean, who holds the second-ranking mortgage, initiated their foreclosure application in March 2023, saying that Coromandel Properties had defaulted on their loan agreement and owed them $6,201,810 as of March 31, 2023, with interest.

Desjardins holds the first-ranking mortgage, a loan facility of $80M that was agreed upon in 2018, and initiated their foreclosure application in August, saying they were owed $22,929,749 as of August 1, with interest accumulating at a floating rate.

Desjardins obtained an order nisi that confirmed the outstanding debt at $23,385,827 on October 26. An order for conduct of sale allowing them to sell the property was then granted on November 30 to Jin-Ocean.

Commercial real estate brokerage Colliers was retained, with the listing team consisting of Hart Buck, Simon Lim, Jennifer Darling, Jessica Hathaway, and James Lang, who have since found a buyer and filed an application to the Supreme Court for approval. The sale approval application was filed last week and will be heard by the court on Thursday, April 4.

The 7510 Cambie Street property in Vancouver, at the intersection with West 59th Avenue.(Colliers)

The buyer is 1469664 BC Ltd., who reached an agreement on March 7 to purchase 7510 Cambie Street for $25.8M. If approved by the court, the transaction is expected to close on Sunday, June 16.

The proceeds of the sale will first go towards paying off arrears of taxes, utilities, and interest, and then commission to Colliers, before being disbursed to Computershare Trust Company of Canada, the collateral trustee on behalf of Desjardins, and then finally to Jin-Ocean.

The Property

The $25.8M sale price is substantially lower than the asking price of $32M listed in the sales brochure for 7510 Cambie Street, as well as BC Assessment's latest $36.3M valuation. Furthermore, according to Coromandel Properties' February 2023 petition to the court seeking creditor protection, the property received an appraisal of $68.989M on May 25, 2022.

A rezoning application was submitted for the site by a different developer — 8822999 (Marpole) Inc. — in 2015, with plans to build one six-storey mixed-use building and one six-storey residential building with a total of 72 residential units and one commercial unit.

Renderings from the 2015 rezoning application for 7510 Cambie Street.(WT Leung Architects Inc)

Coromandel Properties acquired the site in 2018 for approximately $44M and was considering an 18-storey residential development instead, following the approval of the Vancouver Plan in 2022, which was factored into the $69M appraisal.

However, the listing by Colliers does not mention this latter high-rise development potential, instead only noting that the previous rezoning has already been enacted and that $3.5M in community amenity contributions has already been paid to the City of Vancouver. A development permit had previously been obtained, but has now expired, according to Colliers.

The foreclosure sale of 7510 Cambie Street is the latest chapter in the dismantling of Coromandel Properties and its former assets. Earlier this month, STOREYS reported that the Kilborn Building on 1380 Burrard Street had been listed for sale as the result of another foreclosure. Earlier this year, STOREYS also reported that a land assembly near Nanaimo Station had been sold after a bidding war that involved the City of Vancouver, which ultimately lost the bid.