Problems keep piling up for a building under construction on Anderson Road in Richmond city centre.
Last week, Scott Construction, the company building the Alfa condo development, terminated its contract with the developer, Anderson Square Holdings, and told their subcontractors to stop working on the project after losing confidence in the owner’s ability to finance the project.
Two weeks prior, Scott Construction told the Richmond News that they were suing Anderson Square Holdings for $4.6 million for extra costs associated with delays on the project.
This followed the cancellation of pre-sales in the project after the owner pulled the plug on the 15-storey project at Anderson Road and Buswell Street, a block away from city hall.
In a statement to Richmond News on Monday, Darin Hughes of Scott Construction said the company became “increasingly concerned” that Anderson Square Holdings couldn’t pay Scott and its subcontractors after letters were sent out saying they couldn’t get a construction financing commitment
“Unfortunately, Anderson Square Holdings couldn’t demonstrate to us they had secured reasonable evidence of financial arrangements to fulfill their obligations under the contract,” Hughes said. “As a result, we have terminated our contract with the client.”
Hughes added that Scott Construction is committed to making sure their subcontractors have “as much certainty as possible” to be paid for their work.
“As a result, we needed to let them know they can stop work and start making plans to get other projects,” Hughes explained. “We did that this last week. We value our relationships with our clients and we hope we can resolve this quickly and fairly.”
Anderson Square Holdings notified its customers about a month ago it was cancelling the pre-sale contracts for the Alfa development at Anderson Road and Buswell Street, with a full refund of deposits, plus interest. Anderson is owned by former city council candidate Sunny Ho. Ho has not returned calls to the News.
- With files from Alan Campbell and Nono Shen
