Ian Gillespie is sitting down, but in constant motion. The Westbank founder and CEO is drinking a decaf mocha, but he seems pretty caffeinated. He gesticulates. He laughs. He swears a lot. He goes from one idea to the next, stretching back a couple of decades to explain the background of recent events, and then skyrocketing to 100 years in the future.
This week, Gillespie sat down with The Vancouver Sun for a wide-ranging interview, his first with any news media in several years. Through the 1990s and 2000s, Gillespie was regularly profiled and interviewed by local and international newspapers and magazines while his company had a meteoric rise, transformed Vancouver’s skyline, and set off on major projects in other markets.
In recent years, however, while the company has been in the headlines for reasons businesses prefer to avoid, Gillespie has eschewed interviews and retreated, at least somewhat, from the limelight. During a nearly two-hour conversation at the Fairmont Pacific Rim, one of the downtown landmarks Gillespie developed, he responded to some old criticisms of Westbank and, for the first time, publicly commented on recent news stories about the company.
He seems unbothered about recent adversity, and focused on the future. “I’m moving forward,” he said. “It’s not about the past.”
Recent Challenges and Legal Disputes
Westbank, with a reported $50 billion of projects completed or under development, is a major Vancouver company and responsible for some of the region’s most ambitious real-estate projects of the past three decades. But not everything has been going according to plan lately for the company.
Once a 50 per cent owner of Sen̓áḵw, Westbank sold its last remaining stake there last year to the Ontario pension fund OPTrust. Earlier this month, news broke that for the first time, a Westbank project had been placed under receivership, after a court application by OPTrust seeking to recoup $109 million in debt. In recent years, several construction companies and other suppliers sued Westbank alleging millions in unpaid bills. More recently, two people who worked in senior roles with Westbank filed lawsuits alleging they were owed six- and seven-figure sums.
Oakridge, even in an unfinished state, is beautiful and Thursday’s opening drew huge crowds. But the project is behind schedule. To many people — both those within Vancouver’s real estate industry and outside observers — it seemed the once-high-flying Westbank was on the ropes.
Gillespie's Response and Future Plans
Gillespie doesn’t see it that way. In addition to the Vancouver data centres, Westbank has big plans in California, Hawaii, and more to come in his company’s hometown soon, he said. Two weeks ago, Westbank, Telus and the government of Canada announced a multi-billion-dollar plan to build two data centres in Vancouver, hailed as one of B.C.’s most significant economic and technological projects in years. This week, the first residents are set to move into Sen̓áḵw, the rental towers on Kits Point that Westbank developed with the Squamish Nation. And Thursday was the ribbon-cutting ceremony at Oakridge Park, the shopping mall that will anchor a massive redevelopment that Gillespie says took more than a decade and a half of work.
Gillespie emphasized his forward-looking mindset, dismissing the notion that Westbank is in a precarious position. He described the legal disputes as part of the normal course of business for a large developer and expressed confidence in the company's financial health and project pipeline. The interview highlighted his unwavering optimism and determination to continue shaping Vancouver's urban landscape, despite the recent setbacks.
