Quote:
Originally Posted by Labroco
I just do not agree with you on this...
I do not see it as residential at all...
There is no or very little remediation required if it's not residential.
The roof is in fairly good shape. There is not a structural issue that I am aware of. The brick may need a little repointing and the windows reinstalled. Heating may set you back 200k and 200k for plumbing. ( kind of ironic don't you think?) A floor slab needs to be poured. With two or three pumps removed your done. Landscaping is the city's job.
For 2 million dollars it's more than done! It's only 18,000 ft!
Keep the consultants and centre ventures away from it and one of the local landowners will turn it around in 18 months...
Stop tearing these buildings down!
It's really not rocket science.
Your right though it will have to be given away for free and there is not a huge financial windfall. As for financing it, I see it being just done with cash.
Chicago and Melbourne saved their pump houses, why shouldn't we?
In the mean time just put in two or three of the windows back in on James Street and turn on the coloured lights!
I'll donate the bench for the blvd. so people can just sit and look inside! Why are they hiding this great space from the public?
Stop treating it as financial liability and start viewing it as a huge architectural and cultural asset!
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Sorry, I wasn't implying that the pumphouse itself would be residential, but with the Pumphouse comes a surface parking lot directly behind it. My guess is that CV would rather be part of the solution than the problem and demand that somebody develop it alongside the pumphouse.
In any case, you're right that Chicago restored theirs, but they had to declare it a national historic site in order to fund the project through federal government resources. My understanding is also that its mostly gone dilapidated since.
I'm really trying to look at this situation realistically. All my information is second-hand, but the remediation of the building has been pegged at closer to $4MM and that's without any tenant improvements. Since CV isn't prepared to give it away, including the value of whatever cash flows come from the surface lot attached, they've been floating somewhere on the order of $1MM. That means somebody needs to come to the table with $5MM in cash and no tenant. I guess it's possible, but I doubt it. Especially given that numerous groups have tried. Who would possibly part with $5MM of their own cash and probably three quarters of a million of value for their time in order to save this thing? The answer is probably nobody. Nobody yet, anyway. So we have to look at it as a financial liability because it is one.
There are solutions; don't get me wrong. CV would have to give somebody a very long rope with a nearly interminable time table. They would have to hand over everything for nothing, pay for the remediation bill, and abate the taxes for at least twenty years. They would have to guarantee the lease of whomever eventually occupied the space and abate their ARV and business taxes for no less than ten years. And then from there you'd have to find a developer and construction manager to work at a huge discount.
And that's why I find the redevelopment of the building suspect - that's a lot that has to go one person's way from a lot of people who probably aren't interested in that agreement. The outcome of that arrangement is also entirely outside the best interests of the city given what could be generated in property taxes if it were just razed, so don't forget about the opportunity cost associated.
I guess the other option would be provincial government funding or going to the private sector with a capital campaign, but the political winds definitely aren't blowing that way and this city has just about tapped its donor base as far as capital campaigns go for the time being.
I don't know. Call me cynical about it, but there's an array of variables at play here that make this building difficult to redevelop. I stand by my prediction...
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