Bosa is Refusing to Renew Tenant Leases! Or are they?

One of the reasons why it's so easy to be part of the anti-development crowd is that you never actually need to do any research. Why do all of that searching and phoning and reading when you can just make stuff up?

The latest round of rumour-mongering claims that Bosa, who are applying sometime soon to redevelop the Lynn Valley Centre property, have been refusing to renew tenant leases. Or, on alternate days, have been raising rents sky high in order to force out tenants.

By my count the Centre now has four empty store fronts, plus the old Zellers space, plus the dollar store which is about to close its doors.

Try as I might, I can't think up any business case to support the idea that empty stores would improve Bosa's bottom line.

And, conspiracy theories aside, I also can't think of any plausible way that emptying out the Mall would somehow make the District more likely to allow high rise construction.

So I did that thing that the no hirises (sic) people find so difficult: I e-mailed Bosa and asked them if they had been doing these things.

Their response seems pretty specific and direct:

Bosa is not refusing to re-new leases or trying to force tenants out. Actually nothing could be further from the truth! Recently, the fellow who owned the dollar store did not renew his lease and Bosa even offered to lower the rent to keep him. In all of the planning we are constantly focused on how to do the project with as little disruption to the mall and the tenants as possible.

Of course the conspiracy theorists will see this as yet another part of the Big Conspiracy.