Minglian: nine storeys on Spruce Street, sold as they stand

When National Bank of Canada asked the Supreme Court of British Columbia to put Minglian Holdings Ltd. and its nominee company under the CCAA in September 2025, the building at 2511 Spruce Street in Vancouver had concrete poured for nine of its ten planned storeys and stood open to the weather. It was designed as three retail units, a level of offices and 38 homes; Minglian had pre-sold 22 of the homes and two of the shops. Construction, managed by a related company, Pacific Community Builders Inc., had suffered "significant delays and cost overruns" from the outset, the bank's affiant, Richard Dean Chan, deposes, and trades had begun filing builders' liens on title. The bank put its debt at approximately $35.4 million as of August 5, 2025, secured by a $37,875,000 mortgage, per the Affidavit #1 of Richard Dean Chan, Sept. 24, 2025, paras. 5, 10, 12, 14, 23–25.

The bank's view at filing was that finishing the building, which its affidavit calls the Spruce Project, and selling the units individually "will achieve the best return," because significant value was tied up in presale contracts only completion could realize. It had "lost faith in management of the Debtors" to do the finishing, and asked for a monitor with enhanced powers over the site, while leaving room for an "as is where is" sale if that proved the better course, per the Affidavit #1 of Richard Dean Chan, Sept. 24, 2025, paras. 15–17. Eleven months later the building is being sold as it stands. In its Eighth Report, dated August 21 and filed August 24, MNP Ltd. asks for the stay, which expires on September 4, to be extended to October 23, 2026 so that the sale approved on July 21 can close, per the Eighth Report of the Monitor, Aug. 21, 2026, paras. 6, 38.

Six months with Cushman & Wakefield

The monitor listed the site, marketed as Duet, with Cushman & Wakefield under an exclusive agreement of October 30, 2025. E-blasts went to 6,518 recipients on the brokerage's investor and developer lists, broadcasts went to 816 MLS commercial brokers, and 89 parties opened the data room. The first eight offers were not satisfactory: they carried long due diligence periods or required NBC to stay in after closing, and several bidders said estimates of the cost to complete, and construction problems, were material to their numbers, per the Fifth Report of the Monitor, June 12, 2026, paras. 20–23.

So the monitor had Mierau Contractors Ltd. tender the remaining work. Its analysis put the cost to complete at $21.9 million, including a construction management fee. The debtors' estimate was $17.5 million without that fee, $2.8 million lower once $1.6 million of construction management is added back, and the monitor did not accept it as viable, citing "a history of significant cost overruns and delays" under the debtors' stewardship and $1.16 million of remediation to existing concrete work that the debtors had not budgeted, per the Fifth Report of the Monitor, June 12, 2026, paras. 24–30.

With tendered figures in hand, bidders returned six further or updated offers. On May 28, 2026 the monitor accepted a subject-free offer from Signature Capital Inc. for $18.3 million, with an outside closing date of September 20, 2026; two nominally higher offers lost because their diligence periods meant more holding cost and less certainty of closing. The monitor modelled completion with the presales closing, completion without them, and the Signature sale, and concluded that "in all scenarios, NBC will suffer a significant shortfall," per the Fifth Report of the Monitor, June 12, 2026, paras. 31, 34–36, 38–40.

The developer's case for finishing

Minglian wanted to finish the building. On April 2, 2026 it put forward a term sheet for a $22.1 million facility at 13%, maturing in six months, with a $665,000 commitment fee and a charge ranking behind only the Administration Charge. The monitor said the money would not cover the work: on closing, the debtors would have to pay $640,000 of the lender's fee and repay the $1,630,000 interim facility to give the new lender its priority. NBC, consulted, did not support it, per the Fifth Report of the Monitor, June 12, 2026, paras. 54–60. The lender, Maynbridge Capital Inc., would not extend its deadline or enlarge the loan, and on June 12, after the monitor had delivered its Fifth Report, the debtors produced a second term sheet from Richmond Innovations Capital Ltd. It offered $25.0 million at 12% for 12 months with a $500,000 commitment fee, conditional on lender due diligence, an appraisal and credit committee approval, and required a guarantee from Minglian's president, Sean Huang, and a reduction of the Administration Charge from $500,000 to $400,000. The monitor accepted that the larger facility answered its concern about sufficiency, but concluded it "does not provide a viable option," per the Sixth Report of the Monitor, June 25, 2026, paras. 22–23, 48–53.

The debtors' valuation rested on a broker opinion of value from CBRE, provided on or about May 9, 2026, that assumed conversion to market rental, which, the monitor observed, would mean disclaiming every presale contract. Drawing on Cushman's advice, the monitor questioned the inputs: a 1% vacancy assumption against a CMHC rate of 2.2% for South Granville; a rental rate that appeared high against five active concrete rental projects in the Broadway corridor; a cap rate significantly below those of purpose-built rentals on the market; and no stated assumption about absorption, where five comparable projects had averaged 11.5 units a month with 1,607 units remaining on the market and 21,138 more in planning or construction. The monitor also said it could not support Pacific Community Builders overseeing completion, and was not aware of any active project on which that company was the general contractor, per the Sixth Report of the Monitor, June 25, 2026, paras. 28–32, 39–41.

The debtors put in a letter from one presale purchaser supporting completion; the monitor had received five formal requests from others to terminate their contracts and recover their deposits, per the Sixth Report of the Monitor, June 25, 2026, paras. 43–44. On June 26 the court extended the stay to September 4, sealed the monitor's confidential supplements and the unredacted version of Mr. Huang's June 22 affidavit, and dismissed both of the debtors' applications: the new financing, and a $175,000 charge for their own counsel. The vesting order was put over to July 21, per the Seventh Report of the Monitor, July 10, 2026, paras. 5, 9.

A sealed round

After the Fifth Report, two more offers had arrived: a letter of intent superior in value to Signature's but with several conditions and a lengthy due diligence period, and an offer from what the monitor describes as "a large developer based in British Columbia," comparable in form and superior in value. Every interested party, Signature included, was told to deliver a final sealed bid with a deposit by 4 p.m. on July 3. The other developer and Signature bid, and the monitor chose Signature. The original price had been known to all parties while the sealed bids were not, which in the monitor's view gave each bidder "a fair opportunity to submit its best offer," per the Seventh Report of the Monitor, July 10, 2026, paras. 10, 18, 22–25.