The Residences at the Ritz-Carlton, a condo-hotel in Vancouver Canada, and perhaps the most anticipated new tower in all of Canada has shut down construction in the early going.

The condos at Ritz-Carlton Vancouver are priced at $3M to $9M with the penthouse at $28.8M. The bottom 20 floors of the 60-story twisting tower designed by internationally famed architect Arthur Erickson are scheduled to hold 127 hotel rooms.

As global credit markets seize up many are suspecting the work stoppage due to a larger global economic crisis, but the developer has said it’s instead the result of modification to the building’s parkade.

CLM thinks it’s more likely to be related to the former than the latter, but we can only wait for confirming news.

If it turns out to be a financing issue it will be one of the first indications of a more wide-spread global economic crisis that is now affecting previously unaffected locations and otherwise positive condo projects - half the units at the Ritz-Carlton have been sold.