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Builder of evacuated Langford rental complex files for bankruptcy

Company has liabilities totalling more than $50M, per court filings
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A sign warns pedestrians outside RidgeView Place. (Bailey Moreton/News Staff)

DB Services of Victoria Inc. – builders of several Langford developments including the ill-fated RidgeView Place – has filed for bankruptcy.

In bankruptcy filings from July 31, the company said it had liabilities totalling more than $51.3 million and total assets totalling more than $47.45 million. Vancouver-based Grant Thornton was appointed as the insolvency trustee or administrator.

There are nearly 150 unsecured creditors to which DB Services owes money, ranging from Lowes, owed $1 on the low end, to companies that are owed hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to a statement from Grant Thornton.

Local firms like Langford-based Scansa Contruction is owed $551,645.53, while Gordon ‘N’ Gordon Interiors is owed more than $700,000, plus $112,000 owed to GNG Painting.

DB Services has been a prolific builder of multi-storey residential and commercial buildings in Langford in recent years, completing 12 projects in the city’s downtown core, according to an archived version of the company’s website. They include six residential buildings on Hockley Avenue, as well as notable large builds like Tallwood 1, the 12-storey commercial and residential building on Peatt Road, and RidgeView Place (then called Danbrook One) – which is currently empty after being vacated by tenants over safety concerns. There are a couple of projects still under construction: Rockford Place 1 and 2 along Goldstream Avenue and another six-storey residential building on Station Avenue.

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The first meeting of the creditors is set for Aug. 15 at 2 p.m.

DB Services was sued in October 2020 by Centurion Property Associates, the company that currently owns RidgeView Place, for “alleged negligence in the design and construction of the building.” Loco Investments, Sorensen Trilogy Structural Engineering Solutions and the City of Langford were also named in the suit.

In his decision dated December 30, 2022, Justice Gordon Weatherill dismissed Centurion’s application, but Centurion filed an appeal, with a case management conference set for Oct. 10.

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