The Salient Group

Annex Open To Some Lofty Ideas
Paris Phase Two: Brand new homes in Gastown, next to Woodward’s site

Kate Webb, The Province
Published: Sunday, October 26, 2008
Images: Househunting.ca 

THE FACTS
What: Paris Annex
Where: 53 West Hastings, Vancouver
Developer: The Salient Group
Sizes: Studio up to two-bedroom, from 660 to 1,438 sq. ft.
Prices: $399,000 to $499,000
Open: Display suite at 53 West Hastings, open by private appointment only: Phone 604-341-7997.
Info: www.parisannex.com

Since the highly anticipated 536 homes at the Woodward’s site sold out in a real-estate feeding frenzy in one day in 2006, the allure of a Gastown address has never been greater.

Grocery stores, restaurants, banks, boutiques and even Simon Fraser University’s School for the Contemporary Arts will all be bustling with activity when move-ins begin this time next year, as the ever-evolving neighbourhood steps into its own as a new hub of downtown culture.

But outside that mega-project, opportunities to get into Gastown have been scarce, and square footage is pricey.

Enter Paris Annex, the Salient Group’s half-heritage- restoration, half-new-construction project next door to the Woodward’s site.

Paris, the first phase of the Paris Annex project — in the century-old Paris building — is sold except for a couple of penthouses priced just under $1.2 million.

Annex, a new building attached to the Paris heritage building, is home to 16 new, ultra-modern suites. They’re wider than the suites in Paris and come with outdoor space.

Continue reading “The Province: Paris Annex: Annex Open To Some Lofty Ideas” »

Paris Annex: C’est bonne
New building and 1907 Paris Block next door are ‘fraternal twins’

Barbara Gunn, Westcoast Homes
Published: Saturday, October 11, 2008

The affable Robert Fung, founder of a development company that has been largely focused on restoring Vancouver’s historic downtown district, can think of three reasons that drive his passion for social sustainability.

They are six, five and three years old — and they are his daughters.

“I love this city and I’d like them to grow up here,” says the 42-year-old president of the Salient Group, sipping an Americano in one of his favourite Gastown eateries.

“I’d like it to be a city that they want to live in, where they can make a living, where they can accommodate the cost of housing, a city that’s diverse and where there’s a great deal of understanding, where there are options in places to live, and where, environmentally, there’s an understanding of the impact of the things we do on the bigger picture of the world.”

Fung, an Ontario native who developed a fondness for Vancouver soon after he moved here 20 years ago — “It gets in your blood pretty quickly,” he says — is doing his best, a project at a time, to shape parts of the city he envisions for his little girls.

His company currently has some 100,000 square feet of heritage office space complete, or nearing completion, in some of Vancouver’s most historic neighbourhoods, and a project list that includes Gastown’s Alhambra, Garage and Terminus buildings, the Flack Block on Hastings, the Bowman Block on Beatty and the Taylor Building on Water Street — the latter two winners of Urban Development Institute’s excellence awards.

Continue reading “HouseHunting.ca: Paris Annex: C’est bonne” »