In principle, the lowered building height does actually sound plausible. I suspect banks, given the specific risks involved, would only finance a project like 1 Bloor if nearly 100% of units were sold.
The way I see it, there's two likely scenario's:
(1) From what I've been told, only a small handful of units (3-4) above the 68th floor were actually sold (at $2,500/sqft it was always a tough sell). This left almost 15% of the building space unsold and bank lenders very nervous (given the weak economy and now HST). Thus, to get financing, simply cut out these floors and boost building space sold to near 100%.
(2) Perhaps Bazis has given up trying to sell the hotel component. I think the hotel was meant to be 7+ floors representing 10%+ of total building space. Simply cutting out the "hotel" floors could boost total sales closer to 100% which lenders have demanded.
What do you all think?
