September Was The Month of Contrasts For SG Blocks & ConGlobal
Good News for SG Blocks in the U.S., but Bad News for Canada's 2010 Olympics
September 2008 was the best month or the worst month, depending on where you live.
An Eco-Green show was a rave for SG Blocks and shipping container building contractors in the U.S. while Canada and other countries have put them on their “Black List” as the SG Blocks Olympic Village has failed last minute. Olympic Village housing was to open Novemeber 2008. Now it will never happen.
2010 Olympics housing project is cancelled.
- Once happy, but now their smiles have faded….
For the past 6 weeks the ISBU Association has been getting emails and comments from all over, especially Vancouver Canada and specifically the City of Whistler where the SG Blocks project was to be constructed. Because we are the ISBU Association everyone expected us to have some pull or know what was happening. “Little do people realize, SG Blocks is not a member of the ISBU Association so we have no answers regarding this either”, says John Sanders, GM of the organization.
The Whistler Chamber of Commerce says the SG Blocks 308 unit worker housing project was officially cancelled September 25 because SG Blocks and their partners, ConGlobal and the Lawrence Group did not have the financial ability to meet their commitment. Numerous warnings were printed by the local news media, Pique News Magazine and Whistler Question but many thought for sure it could be saved. Apparently when the Olympic organizers learned SG Blocks was in trouble there was simply not enough time for other building contractors to take over the project.
“We were actually forced to print this story”, said ISBA editor Carlos Navarro. “This is not only giving a negative image to other very responsible ISBU shipping container contractors, most of whom are ISBA Members, but we were being accused of covering up for SG Blocks. …we simply would have no reason to do that”.
Already the Canadians and even many U.S. readers are wondering why the U.S. news media are so quick to promote SG Blocks but haven’t said a word regarding their terrific damage to the 2010 Olympic project. The SG Blocks failure actually happened the last week of August only days after the big news article posted in USA Today when SG BLocks announced the project. Obviously the project was already in jeopardy when the USA Today story was published praising the SG Blocks success.
“I have no answers”, stated Barry Naef, Director of ISBA, “I have the greatest respect for Dave Cross the founder of SG Blocks and I’m sorry this is happening to his dream. I really don’t think he’s the person to be taking the blame because he’s mostly in marketing now and not in the management”. Naef went on to say, “Dave was one of the greatest inspirations for the development of ISBU shipping container construction in the U.S. and he doesn’t deserve this”.
We will echo the comments of many Canadian businesses and residents, “how can such big companies as SG Blocks and their ConGlobal-Lawrence Group investors not have the ability to arrange funding”? In business construction terms, the project cost was really not that big.
“We are hopeful the public in Canada, the U.S. and globally will realize this has nothing to do with ISBU housing projects or ISBU technology, but with business mangement of a specific construction company. Other similar companies such as Verbus, Buro Happold, TempoHousing, Urban Space Management, and hundreds of smaller companies are having no problems with ISBU construction projects in today’s economy”, says Barry Naef, “and all of these companies now have U.S. offices.
Tags: business, conglobal, construction, dave cross, economics, housing, ISBA, isbu association, lawrence group, phoenix project, sg blocks, shipping container, vancouver, whistler