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Local

Village an Olympic race to the finish

By BOB MACKIN

It will be a race to finish Vancouver's Olympic Village.

City manager Penny Ballem told council Tuesday that some buildings are early or on time, but others won't be done before the Nov. 1 deadline to handover to VANOC.

"There's no opportunity for us to sit back and put our feet up," Ballem said.

One of three affordable housing parcels was handed over to VANOC a month early on Oct. 1, another "requires continuous monitoring" to meet a Nov. 1 deadline while a third parcel is targeted for Dec. 3.

Completion of the Salt Building is scheduled for Oct. 31, but the Civic Centre missed its July 31 deadline and needs "careful oversight" to meet a renegotiated Nov. 1 handover.

She said VANOC has "inspected, approved and locked-down" 420 of the 1,100 units at the $1.1 billion complex.

Most utilities and streetscapes are on track, but docks and a park have been deferred until after the Games.

The city and developer Millennium signed an amended loan on Sept. 11 to reduce interest costs and offer on-time bonuses of $250,000 for each of the eight parcels.

A report conducted by KPMG through Jan. 19 found the project was in disarray.

Ballem said construction was behind, no formal schedule existed and there was no "direct communication" among the developer, contractor, consultants and city.

Lender Fortress Credit Corporation was replaced with financing from a TD-led consortium.

The previous NPA-majority council gave Millennium an emergency $100 million loan on Oct. 14, 2008.

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