My guess is that the Phase I, II and III environmental assessments and associated cleanup costs are too high for a former auto dealership site. It'd be nice for the City to roll out an incentive program to cover this type of costs for downtown housing starts. I think Regency's Emerald Tower...
Intel tells me both primes and subs have been selected. Hearing that an aggressive timeline is expected in delivering the civil designs in the coming few months. Expect a development permit application sometime soon as well.