BCBusiness Report Card: Big move on Grouse Mountain and down on the Endowment Lands

We assess how different people/things and, of course, businesses fared this week.

Credit: Grouse Mountain on Twitter

Grouse Mountain has a new owner

We assess how different people, things and, of course, businesses fared this week

Welcome to your 20s. Oh, sorry, we mean the 20s.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t act like an irresponsible brat.

Take CNN, for example. The iconic news organization included our lovely province on its list of the 20 best places to visit in 2020 (the numerical consistency is so beautiful). It also spelled it “British Colombia”.

Don’t they know that Escobar closed?

Here’s what made the grade (and what didn’t) in the week that was.

Names starting with Oliv

Grade: A

The two most popular names in B.C. in 2019 were reportedly Olivia and Oliver.

But despite the love, olives remain criminally underrated. We all have those friends who can’t stand them.

And you’re all like “but, all olives? Even the big green ones that have been pitted and stuffed with cheese?” And they go, “yeah, I don’t like olives.”

Don’t forget that when they go and name their kid Olivia this year. Never. Forget.

Grouse Mountain

Grade: B+

Just two years after it was sold, Grouse Mountain Resorts has a new owner again.

This time, it’s Northland Properties, the company operated by the wealthy and local Gaglardi clan.

Northland has placed a priority on upgrading the mountain’s “aging infrastructure”, including the blue tram, which was built in 1966.

No word on whether Grouse will start shoehorning some of its existing franchises onto the mountain.

(It definitely will. Hope you like Denny’s and Shark Club!)

Transit

Grade: C

If you’re like us, you remember the days when bus fees were hiked up past two dollars. It was tough, impossible even, to reckon with the idea of sinking a whole toonie down that metal orifice.

Don’t look now, but this year Translink is set to hike the single-zone fee for an adult up past three whole dollars.

It will soon cost $3.20 to ride the bus. But hey, swiping your credit card (or Compass Card) on the thing is a whole lot less painful than forking over cold hard coins. So there’s that, we suppose.

Next you’re going to tell us that five-cent candies aren’t five cents anymore.

Wait, what?

The Endowment Lands

Grade: C­–

Of all the neighbourhoods in Metro Vancouver, the Endowment Lands lost the most in terms of the value of a median detached home, according to recent numbers released by BC Assessment (but based on the value on July 1, 2019).

Houses in the Endowment Lands were down a median 16.22 percent. So, you know, take that, millionaires. Not so endowed now, are you?

(The average home in that area is still worth just under $5 million.)

MSP premiums

Grade: F

Even the passing of the most embattled figures can be complicated sometimes. Such is not true, however, of MSP premiums.

They are gone, and we never have to hear from it or see them again.

We know—you wish you could say the same about the BCBusiness Report Card.

Sorry, folks! See ya next week.