Peter Wall, Vancouver developer, philanthropist and political insider, has died

Peter Wall, the opinionated, philanthropic property developer whose projects have helped shape Vancouver’s downtown, died this past Sunday at 87.

His company, Wall Financial Corp., issued a statement Wednesday afternoon honouring his legacy and vision for the city.

“Peter’s influence on Vancouver’s skyline, cultural landscape, and intellectual community will be felt for generations.”

The statement did not disclose cause of death.

His most well-known project is the Wall Centre on Burrard Street, opposite the current site of St. Paul’s Hospital, which included condos, a hotel and – contrary to the wishes of city planners – a large open plaza.

But one of his favourites was the Shannon Mews estate, the block on South Granville with a mansion originally built by sugar magnate B.T. Rogers, which he bought in 1967 for $750,000. In the early 2010s, he redeveloped the property to add hundreds of condos and townhouses around the historic home, lining the property with striking ceramic white “trees” visible to drivers going by.

A flamboyant character, Mr. Wall regularly enlivened the local scene with his unfettered opinions on life, politicians and the city, along with his passion for expensive sports cars, opera and extravagant Christmas parties.

He praised U.S. President Donald Trump as a “breath of fresh air” in 2017 when the Trump Hotel (now renamed Paradox) opened in the city.

He got into a verbal, public brawl with the City of Vancouver in the early 2000s when the mayor and council declared the black glass on the exterior of his prominent Wall Centre in downtown Vancouver was against what was permitted. And, in one famous incident, he secretly funded billboards to support a city council candidate in 2017, later admitting he was the mystery donor when The Globe and Mail called to ask him about it.

Mr. Wall routinely dabbled in politics, putting money into campaigns and fundraisers for a wide range of hopefuls, including former Vancouver mayor Larry Campbell when he was running with the left-wing COPE civic party in 2002 and Christy Clark when she was campaigning to be premier for the B.C. Liberal Party in 2012. He also backed federal Liberal leader Paul Martin in 2003 and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre last year.

“He’s in that class of developer you almost want to make movies out of,” said former city councillor Gordon Price, who was at city hall in the years when Mr. Wall was at his most active in development.

Born in Ukraine to a Mennonite family, Mr. Wall came to Canada as a child in 1948 with his family, who settled in Abbotsford. After trying to get a degree in chemistry at the University of B.C. and dropping out, he started building houses.

In 1969, he co-founded a development company with his cousin Peter Redekop that started out building single-family houses, then moved into the kind of low-rise apartment buildings, which now are part of the stock of the region’s most affordable housing, and, eventually, condos when the legislation allowed them.

He founded Wall Financial Corp. in 1969. It reported assets of almost a billion dollars earlier this year, along with revenue of $155-million.

Mr. Wall was also a huge supporter of the arts in Vancouver, flying in opera singers or choirs for special concerts and contributing significantly to the restoration of theatres such as the Stanley Theatre on Granville and the York Theatre on Commercial Drive.

He also endowed UBC with $15-million in 1991 to establish the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies. That money helped support some of the university’s best researchers, including Nobel Prize-winning chemist Michael Smith.