City of Vancouver Purchases Olympic Village Loan from Fortress Credit

City of Vancouver completed the purchase from Fortress Credit Corporation of its construction loan for the development of the Olympic Village in Vancouver on February 18, 2009. The loan, in the committed amount of $750 million, was made to a subsidiary of Millennium Development Corporation in September 2007.

The Olympic Village, consisting of approximately 830 market condominiums, 120 multi-family residential units and 60,000 square feet of commercial space, as well as a community centre and 250 non-market housing units, will be the home of the athletes' village during the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games, following which the market condominiums are intended to be sold.

The loan was purchased for the total amount of principal advanced at the time of purchase (approximately $317.4 million) plus expenses of the lenders and an early prepayment amount of $4 million. In order to purchase the loan, the City required special legislation from the Province of British Columbia, which was passed during an all-night special sitting of the legislature on January 17, 2009. In order to fund the purchase of the loan, the City obtained a special short-term line of credit in the amount of $400 million from Bank of Montreal.

The City was represented by Frances J. Connell and Bill Aujla of the law department of the City of Vancouver; Ross MacDonald, Michael Allen and Natalie Marach of Stikeman Elliott LLP in Vancouver; special counsel Mitchell Gropper QC, Christopher Holmes and Robert Sloman of Farris, Vaughan, Wills & Murphy LLP; and Morley Koffman, QC, of Koffman Kalef LLP.

Bank of Montreal was represented by Michael Kalef of Koffman Kalef. Fortress was represented by its US counsel, Marc Hayutin, Edward Prokop and Michael Woodhouse of Sidley Austin LLP; and local counsel, Keith Burrell, QC, Natalie Garton, Colin McIvor, Christopher Falk and Kathleen Higgins of McCarthy Tétrault LLP. Millennium was represented by John Third of Fraser Milner Casgrain LLP.