Why are they digging deeper in that hole?

I was walking along Georgia Street today between Thurlow and Bute, just past the new Shangri-La Hotel which is set to open in January when I heard several shrill warning whistles. A few seconds later there was a boom. It was more of a base-note that you feel rather than a loud noise that you hear. And then I heard one more shrill whistle, which would be the all-clear whistle. They were blasting in the hole in the ground that was going to be the foundation of a new Ritz Carleton. But there isn't going to be a new building there.

Part of the impact of the current global financial crisis is that construction has been halted or abandoned on new buildings. In downtown Vancouver the hole in the ground that was to be the foundation of a Ritz Carleton hotel / apartment building has all but been abandoned. The huge signs with the great pictures of the planned building are gone. No company name is displayed anywhere near the site.

So why are people still digging deeper in that hole? Shouldn't they be filling it up so no one falls in while the financial crisis continues and nothing is being built?

Some "news" on the web suggested that the construction was stopped because they needed to make changes to the parking garage design. Uhuh, that would be what was going in that hole, but I don't think that's what is happening. The derelict building that was there before the construction was started was your basic rich-person's graffiti - a partly-built building that was never completed and just abandoned to be an eye-sore. Maybe this is just a more insane and dangerous version of rich-people graffiti, a hole where people can fall into and die rather than spray paint and squat in.

It's fall in Vancouver now, with the coming rain maybe this will be the biggest puddle on the planet, and they're going for a Guinness World Record!