Canada s condo amenity wars
Competition for affluent condo buyers has developers piling on frills car fleets, meditation walls and even perks that assuage the social conscience
Vancouver House (Courtesy of Ema Peter/Westbank)
The marketing material for Vancouver House listed 20 reasons to buy a home inside the residential skyscraper overlooking False Creek. Among them: use of a fleet of BMWs; access to a 25-m heated rooftop pool configured so it’s sheltered from the wind yet lets in sunshine; and a 24-hour concierge trained to the same standard as those at the five-star Fairmont Pacific Rim hotel.
But when Allen Oram joined the project as part of the Westbank Development sales team in 2014 before the building broke ground he was moved to buy a unit for himself, in part because of a more unique incentive located halfway around the world. For each of the units sold at the 370-residence Vancouver House, another home would be constructed in Cambodia for poverty-stricken families li