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THE#BCBIZDAILY
Plus, a new restaurant proposed for a Coal Harbour park and UBC closes its $1.6-billion fundraising campaign

Second best
Toronto, Vancouver and Singapore are the top three cities in which to live and do business on the Pacific Rim, according to a study from PricewaterhouseCoopers, released in advance of the upcoming APEC summit in the Philippines. The list ranks cities of APEC member countries—some of them notably far from the sea (looking at you, Toronto).

The full list
  1. Toronto
  2. Vancouver
  3. Singapore
  4. Tokyo
  5. Seattle
  6. Auckland
  7. Seoul
  8. Melbourne
  9. Los Angeles
  10. Osaka
  11. Hong Kong
  12. Taipei
  13. Shanghai
  14. Beijing
  15. Kuala Lumpur
  16. Bangkok
  17. Santiago
  18. Mexico City
  19. Novosibirsk
  20. Chiang Mai
  21. Bandar Seri Begawan
  22. Manila
  23. Lima
  24. Ho Chi Minh City
  25. Jakarta
  26. Cebu
  27. Surabaya
  28. Port  Moresby

While Vancouver ranked second overall, it topped the list on such measures as environmental stability (in particular, its handling of air, water and waste) and tolerance and inclusion. Among the 39 measures that PwC looked at: health, culture, broadband, traffic, transit, health systems, housing, crime, food security, pollution, parks, cost of living and foreign direct investment. You can read the full report here.

Coal Harbour dining
The Vancouver Parks board has green-lit a plan to build a two-storey restaurant on a prime piece of waterfront land next to the Olympic plaza in Coal Harbour. On Monday, board commissioners approved a proposal by restaurant operator Sequoia, which runs Seasons in the Park and the Teahouse in Stanley Park (among other properties), and McDougall Holdings, which runs pubs at float plane terminals in Victoria and at YVR, to build a restaurant on park land. The venture has not yet gone through the city's development permit process and has not set a target launch date.

Big money
The new-old UBC president Martha Piper used the occasion of a speech to the Vancouver Board of Trade to close the university's four-year-long fundraising campaign. In total, UBC raised $1.62 billion between 2011 and 2015 from a pool of 61,000 donors. A surprisingly low share of that, or $341.6 million, came from alumni. The campaign's success is visible in the slate of new buildings christened since 2011: the Peter A. Allard School of Law, the Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health, Audain Art Centre, the Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre and the new student services building (paid for by a $34-million donation from the estate of Judith Jardine).