Colin Wall sets off to build his own legacy in Vancouver’s real estate industry

Colin Wall has long stood in the shadow of his grandfather, famed real estate developer Peter Wall. Now, as he embarks on his own journey in the industry, is he simply following in well-treaded footsteps, or is he trying to be and create something new?

Phase 1: Permitting

I have one real memory of Colin Buck. In my first week of grade 8 at the high school I attended on Vancouver’s west side, a bigger kid threatened me about something or other. I was five feet tall, so that happened occasionally. Buck, also short and wearing skate apparel, came to my defence and we chased the assailant away. He was, from everything else I can remember, generally a nice kid. He left after a few months to go to a nearby school.

We didn’t have much contact in the intervening years, but you heard the stories. First it was classmates recounting tales about being taken along on trips to Disneyland with his family on a whim. Then, as we got older, it was Lamborghinis. And drag racing. And yacht parties. And a big, lavish wedding and the hushed separation that followed.

So when I meet Colin Wall outside of an apartment complex in Kitsilano, I’m not sure what to expect. Wall, who changed his name when he turned 18 and doesn’t have much connection to his father’s side of the family, grew up in Vancouver as the son of Sonja Wall and grandson of real estate developer Peter Wall, founder of Wall Financial and the force behind One Wall Centre—once the tallest building in the city—as well as many other developments.

At 35 years old, the younger Wall has decided to set off on his own. He’s partnered with his grandmother, visual artist Charlotte Wall, to start Hollybush Holdings and develop the building we’re standing in front of, which has been in the Wall family for years. It’s the first move in what could be (if he plays it right) a long career in the industry.

Covered neck to toe in tattoos and taking hits from a mango-flavoured vape, Wall, who has zero social media presence, isn’t exactly what you’d expect to see in a real estate developer, even a younger one. His tone isn’t in concert with most of his peers, either: he’s open and excitable, his blue eyes nearly popping out of his head when he smiles, which he does often. He’s tall now, and has traded in DC and Etnies logos for cashmere and high-end athleisure, while the ski jump hairstyle of our youth has been replaced with a fade that leaves just enough of his blond hair drooping down for him to brush away with his hands when he’s not using them to talk. He insists he doesn’t have enemies in the industry and that everyone has been nice and supportive—a slight departure from the outlook of his grandfather, to say the least.

As the next wave of property developers—many of them the progeny of families made famous in the city’s real estate boom—prepare to take over the city, their true natures will be revealed. Wall, who talks about city building in a sustainable and inclusive way, is on his own now. He’ll likely always be rich. But can he make a name for himself? Can he shape the city in a progressive way? Does he have any actual interest in helping people find homes?

Not many people tell you who they are right away. Even fewer etch it onto themselves. The entire left side of Wall’s body is marked with what he calls “good” images. Angels and crosses, the names of his mom and his stepdad, who helped raise Wall and who passed away just over two years ago. On the right is “evil”—there are demons, upside-down crosses, signs of death. Only time will tell which side of his spine people will identify him with.

After high school, Wall began (with the help of his family to start, of course) buying pre-sale and existing condos and flipping them for profit. He also spent a large part of his 20s travelling the world. “I wanted to have some freedom—I didn’t like school and didn’t do well with it,” he says. “So I got an education through travelling and seeing what different cultures were like. I got to see how different people live and that having lots doesn’t always mean that you’re happier. I’ve seen that firsthand.” Wall, a self-described adrenaline junkie, also did a stint professionally racing cars in the U.S.

He admits, though, that his 20s weren’t exactly a time of great maturity. “When I was younger, all I cared about was having fun, nice cars, being exactly what you’d think,” he says. “I never wanted to be a douchebag. I probably did come across like that to some people, which is a shame.”

In 2016, he got married in a lavish celebration at the Rosewood Hotel Georgia. A Grammy Award nominee sang “Ave Maria” and some of Wall’s friends dressed up as stormtroopers to usher in guests as a nod to his Star Wars fandom. A few years later, the couple divorced.

“I think I was a bit too young; I didn’t know what I wanted at the time,” Wall says. “We parted amicably—I have no ill feelings toward her, and I hope she has none toward me.”

Wall did try his hand at different businesses. The first was a cabinet company in Richmond, through which he and a friend acquired some machinery to fabricate cabinets to sell to developers. Their first contract was with his family, though Wall says with a laugh that they “ruined me on the price. It was a good life lesson.” That company lasted for a few years, but as construction costs went up the margins became too thin to make it work.

Then there was another venture involving the international shipping of metallurgical coal. Wall and a friend were deep into that before the Ukraine/Russia war began to cause heavy fluctuations in the coal trade.

After that, he decided it was time to fully dive into real estate development. “My focus now is more on the work and the city and following in the footsteps of my grandfather, who has given me every opportunity,” he says. “Do I still love nice cars and having fun? Yeah, who doesn’t? But at the end of the day, my focus has switched to ‘what can I do now?’ instead of ‘what can be done for me?’”

Phase 2: Demolition

When the Broadway Plan was in the process of being implemented by the City of Vancouver, Wall went to his grandmother with the plan of partnering with her to start a company and redevelop a property, called Hollybush, on Kitsilano’s West 6th Avenue that has been in the family since Peter Wall got it built in 1967.

The two created Hollybush Holdings and Colin Wall presented an application to city hall for The Charlotte, a 23-storey tower containing 152 purpose-built rental homes, including 122 market rental units and 30 below-market rental units. The entire fifth floor is slated to be a childcare facility, with space for up to 37 kids, while the bottom floor will be designated for retail and restaurant space.

“It was a big learning curve; I had never done any of this on my own,” says Wall. “I got a lot of help from a lot of good people. And the city seemed to really like our ideas.”

Of course, that means the scores of residents who currently live in the 48 units at Hollybush will be displaced in the next few years. Wall has sympathy for those people, many of whom have lived in the building for decades. The city’s rules state that the builder has to offer existing residents a spot in the new building at their same rent and pay for them to rent elsewhere during the construction. Many in the industry are curious how that’s going to play out or whether it’s even possible, given how much cost the developers have to carry.

“My grandma is a very sweet lady—she’s gotten to know a lot of the tenants, and my mother has been helping her manage the place,” says Wall. “They both have a love for it and the people who live here. We want to be fair and do everything we can and more to help them with whatever they need—moving, moving out fees, whatever that is. We hope they all come back, truthfully. They’re great tenants and great people who make Kits what it is.”

He admits, though, that it’s not going to be an easy process for them. “It’s going to be annoying. They’re going to be put through some annoying things. We’re trying to make it as smooth as possible. Vancouver needs more density, and I think they understand that. We’re doing everything we can do because we do care about the people.”

Phase 3: Construction

One of the people who has helped Wall through his journey is Bob Rennie, the renowned real estate marketer who worked with Wall’s grandfather for over two decades but hasn’t had much contact with him over the last several years. “Everything you hear about Peter is true,” says Rennie with a laugh. “What I find from my observations with Colin is that he understands that he had to get out of Peter’s shadow. You wouldn’t pick him out of a lineup as a developer and that, to me, is refreshing… Colin isn’t relying on the wealth of his family. He’s comfortable—no one is eating cat food here—but he’s going to carve his own path.”

Another person who’s been impressed with Wall is Westbank founder Ian Gillespie, he of projects like Vancouver House and Telus Garden. “Empathy would come to mind, sincerity, lack of pretense,” says Gillespie when asked how he’d describe Wall. “He wasn’t saying, ‘I’m taking over the family business.’ It was, ‘I want to do this myself; I want to make my own mark.’”

Wall is part of the next generation of Vancouver real estate developers, most of whom are the offspring of well-known families with last names like Aquilini, Bosa, McAllister, Podmore, Chard, Mackay, De Cotiis and Gaglardi, among others.

In general, Gillespie has liked what he’s seen from those who are coming up in the industry. “They often seek me out, or, when I see them in a social setting, they make an effort to engage in a conversation. And without exception, they’re much more interested and passionate in the things I am than maybe the older guard is. And so I’m interested in them,” he says. “I’m looking forward to following Colin’s path and I think he fits the mould of his generation, who are more interested in what their projects mean to the community they’re building them in than what it means to their income statements.”

But while most of his peers have come up through the family ranks before taking over those familiar companies, Wall was never an employee at Wall Financial and, though he’s learned some of the tricks of the trade from both Peter and Wall Financial chair and CFO Bruno Wall, Peter’s nephew, he’s intent on starting something new.

“No, I don’t,” says Rennie when asked if he sees many similarities between Wall and his grandfather. “A lot of it is generational. The notoriety and the celebrity that went with Peter, in Colin, it will be more about what he produces. The product will be more important than the person.”

Colin Wall waffles a bit when asked the same question. “We have similarities for sure, but we’re very different people at the end of the day,” he says. In terms of the work he’s doing, Wall notes that he would like to collaborate closely with others, and with city hall in particular. “I want to provide something for the people and the city while also receiving something in return. That’s how things should work. Both parties get what they want. I do believe [my grandfather] does that, but I want to emphasize that that’s what I’d like to do.” He isn’t, in other words, going to call city planners “complete and utter idiots,” like Peter Wall did in a 2012 Vancouver magazine profile.

Phase 4: Operation

The changing of the guard in the Vancouver real estate scene seems like it will result in fewer family feuds and the like. “Old problems between developer families don’t always transfer to the younger generations,” says Wall. “I know a lot of developer families, their kids, grandkids, whatever; we all get along, a lot of us hang out. Why wouldn’t we work together instead of clawing each other apart?”

Wall does recognize that his situation is remarkably different from how his grandfather, a Ukrainian immigrant, grew up. “He had to be down in the mud, I didn’t,” says Wall. “So I get to say all these nice things about how I get along with everyone. He had to be a little ruthless; most of that generation did.”

But the real estate industry, with its high barrier to entry, stagnating economic conditions and rocketing construction costs, isn’t necessarily getting easier to make your mark in, even if you have capital. “They’re not all going to make it across the finish line,” Rennie says of the city’s younger developers.

Wall knows that, too. He’s hoping the Hollybush development is the first of many, but any missteps—and there are so many ways a 23-storey building can go wrong—will be extraordinarily costly. “There’s a lot riding on this—my career essentially,” he says. “I want to make sure I do it as well as I can.”

After meeting with Wall four times over the course of a few weeks, I’m still not sure if the kid I knew more than 20 years ago, the one who stood up for the little guy without a moment’s hesitation, is still there, buried under the fancy shirts and tattoos. The city will soon find out if he is.