Comments on: Surrey Condo Development Fire at Quattro

By: Vancouver1

Vancouver1 — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 01:45:09 +0000

Hi Peter,

A group of quattro owners are getting together and have hired a lawyer. Contact Praveena at prgianno@shaw.ca (604-831-0302) for more information.

Vancouver1

By: Raj Taneja

Raj Taneja — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 21:50:31 +0000

Quattro.. yeesh, I once lived on 138th Street near 106th. Long before the Long and McQuade appeared on 104th. The neighbourhood was and continues to be a veritable hellhole.

Firstly, the electronic monitoring branch still exists on that street – for convicted criminals who have that special house arrest bracelet… and it goes down from there.

But let’s go waaay back – back in the day, crazed pit bulls (mostly escaped from their loving families) wandered the street free. The next street over (137th Street) had no street lights (very scary at night) and the typical resident either sold crack from their doorstep or had numerous disassembled vehicles on display in their front yard – not cars, usually trucks.

Crime in the area is still high and save for Podhale Sausages, a couple strip clubs and a Pizza hut, there’s no services in the area, so I doubt a Yaletown-like neighbourhood will ever come into existence there anytime soon. (shudders)

By: WTS - What the Surrey #36: Condo Crisis » Vancouver Blog Miss 604 by Rebecca Bollwitt

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 17:27:40 +0000

[...] happened to the basement suit? Those were the days. Just a few weeks after the Quattro fire (by the way, it’s worth taking a look at some of the comments on that post), Surrey largest [...]

By: Peter

Peter — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 16:01:32 +0000

I purchased a condo in quattro. It has been nightmare. They fooled us with big hype and ads – Yaletown in Surrey, largest development in Surrey etc. Finally it looks like we will be left with a crapy condo in Whally. We can get good apartments in Vancouver for the price we paid. I want to get out of this mess. I will pleased if they just return my deposits. I will never do any business in Surrey. I am singe parent with a one year old baby. I can not believe these people play with me. Any suggestion how I can get out this mess. Thanks

By: james

james — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 17:10:45 +0000

I work at the site and was there from the start of the fire. I am sure it was arson because we had a fire on monday too. I think people are trying to stop us because the flamingo hotel is going to be demolished to make room for our next project.

By: Rob

Rob — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 18:03:08 +0000

I heard on the radio this morning that this is a suspected arson case. Footage of onlookers is allegedly being recorded to see if police can gather a list of suspects, since arsonists like to watch their handiwork. Was this standard police procedure before CSI became so popular?

By: Gregg

Gregg — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 16:20:45 +0000

To answer a few people’s questions, the units haven’t been turned over so it will be on the developer’s insurance, and he already announced he had adequate coverage. He did state that pre-buyers will have to understand there will extra time needed before they get their condos.

I doubt anyone will “get the shaft”; most who have had issues in the past had it happen not do to fire but rather to unscrupulous developers who wanted to take advantage of the increase in value that had happened during the building process. Real estate is in a slow down and so this developer will probably be quite happy to not have to try and re-sell these units.

I actually saw a pre-buyer on the news last night say “I hope this doesn’t affect our likelihood of moving in in December”. I hope they were just in shock and not serious.

This size of building being wood framed is not a safety risk; these are safer than the average house once built due to fire breaks, sprinklers and other required features. This one burned because it was still just wood; there were no drywall or other things designed to stop a fire installed yet.

Make this the third recent occurrence like this, I heard all the emergency vehicles for our under construction condo fire in Abbotsford but didn’t go out on my porch. Neighbours in my building tell me I could have taken impressive pictures of the flames over top of the trees.

By: Mort-y

Mort-y — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 15:41:49 +0000

@william s.: Did the little green men point it out to you?

By: William Szilveszter

William Szilveszter — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 15:07:31 +0000

I am an astronaut and I saw it from the moon.

By: Maktaaq

Maktaaq — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 15:01:04 +0000

Huh, we all got an email around 4 yesterday telling us not to drive down that street after work. I really hope the buyers had insurance.

By: Loxy

Loxy — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 06:29:53 +0000

I was there.

I missed the biggest flames, but there should be a lot of them on the web soon – there were tons of people with cameras. I got a good shot of the cab of the crane on fire..

I’m sure a certain website should get it. heh.

By: Jon

Jon — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 04:48:55 +0000

My friend got some footage of it. SHe was really clsoe too!

By: Don

Don — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 04:24:59 +0000

Bring Yaletown to Surrey? You mean Surrey doesn’t have excessive noise pollution, fashionistas, iPhone addicts and over priced restaurants?

By: Bradley

Bradley — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 04:18:02 +0000

i grew up one block from there. i hope those people aren’t gonna get screwed out of their investments. this isn’t the first time a development has been destroyed and had the pre-buyers get the shaft

By: ianb

ianb — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 03:46:44 +0000

GVRD Real Estate market chills and condos under development start catching fire. hmm..

By: rob

rob — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 00:43:54 +0000

And I saw it from the SFU Surrey campus. Simply awful! At the peak of it, the flames were higher than the construction crane… even more sad because I remember thinking, when I rode past the development recently, how wrong it seemed for such a large structure to be made completely out of wood.

By: mom604

mom604 — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 00:41:10 +0000

I saw this from the skytrain on my way home from work today.