What is the current market value of the old Prince George Hotel site in today’s real estate market?

jObserving the downtown during my rounds (till I moved end of July), noticed more office space being used up so I will safely assume the vacancy rate is lower and getting lower with improved economic conditions.

You nailed it, Ben.

If they need to burn $40 million we should at least get something we can make use of.

What about the performing arts centre?

This isn’t an endless bucket of money. Whatever we waste on this white elephant is money we don’t get for other feel good projects.

I say cut our losses while we still can.

But the City has to increase its tax base and drive the economy. its just a viscous circle robing Peter to pay Paul.

They don’t seem to understand that in a free enterprise system the economy has to drive itself. This constant infusion of taxpayer money screws up he the entire system.
Cheers

Yes Ben, we should just leave everything as is because it’s so much better like that. If you don’t want to change sir, that’s fine just stay where you’re at in your thinking and your pursuits. Change is inevitable, business people will do what makes sense for them to do.

It’s pretty easy to wax philosophical from your overstuffed armchair, but much different when you actually have to make tough choices with limited resources and with many masters barking orders. I seriously doubt you could do better and if you think you can, then step up to the plate.

Sine, this isn’t about not wanting change, it’s about spending $75 million taxpayer dollars for little or no benefit.

JohnnyB,

Little or no benefit? Really, is that how you would view this project?

So you don’t think this community wouldn’t benefit from the construction of a $75 million dollar building on a plot of land in the downtown core that is currently generating no tax revenue and cost the taxpayers, like Ben said, $3.5million to get into that condition? The BC Liberal government is completely corrupt, and I’ve seen them invest far more with far less potential for payback than this project.

Everyone always whines about how we just ship raw materials abroad and don’t extract all the value that our resources have to offer, well this is a step in that direction. I can’t think of a better investment in the forest industry right now, which is in horrible shape, than this. This has the potential to spur innovation right here in our own backyard, and create jobs and opportunities and to extract more value from our exports and to attract investment and skilled labour to our neck of the woods that otherwise wouldn’t come here. That doesn’t seem like a good idea to you? Never mind the instantly realizable benefits in terms of jobs, locally sourced materials for the building, tax revenue, and the huge economic spinoffs from the building of a structure like this.

It will fill a huge hole in our downtown and I think this investment has the potential to pay for itself and then some over time. So I don’t really understand where you get the impression that there will be little to now benefit.

karjai: “So you don’t think this community wouldn’t benefit from the construction of a $75 million dollar building on a plot of land in the downtown core that is currently generating no tax revenue and cost the taxpayers”

Did you read the article? As Ben said, there is no guarantee a taxpayer funded building would be of any tangible benefit. Yes, we’ve wasted money on the site. It is not a reason to waste more.

Also, as Ben mentioned, all it does is add unnecessary supply to the vacancy rate downtown and forces the government to compete with the private sector for occupancy.

karjai: “It will fill a huge hole in our downtown and I think this investment has the potential to pay for itself and then some over time.”

Great, then let the private sector build it and take the risk. Why should taxpayers?

I don’t always agree with Ben, but he hit the mark on this one.

No, JohnnyB, you just happen to agree with Ben about this. That doesn’t make either of you right. Near as I can tell, neither of you are economists or maybe have had any sort of business education at all.

It takes very little economic education to see where the obvious and very quantifiable benefits would flow to and from this project.

The upside is it’s potential. Over the past 10 years, BC’s export of softwood lumber products has almost been cut in half from $9.3 billion to $5.7 billion. If that doesn’t concern you, then I’m not sure what would. We NEED to extract more value from our resources, now more than ever. This is about survival. We need to utilize our resources in a much more intelligent way, if we have any hope of stopping the decline of our society and our industries. One has to understand the place of the market and government in a well functioning economy. It makes sense that government would invest in this type of institution, and develop policy from there, the framework that private industry will operate in. The converse does not make sense anymore.

I think you fail to see the building for what it will be; a source of value. No matter what goes on inside of it, if the building is eventually sold to private interests, the value will be largely retained by the taxpayers. Vacancy rates in and of themselves are indicative of something, but I’m not sure Ben has a handle on what that is and is not. If you had your choice, would you operate your business downtown, or somewhere else? The old adage holds true; location, location, location.

Well, like them or not, Council is trying to make the downtown core a more attractive environment for investment. New investments of this kind goes a long way to helping that out. The death of the downtown is not an option if this City is to remain intact. I don’t hear you and Ben offering up any alternatives, just negative attack with nothing in the way of logic or data to back it up. Not very compelling to me.

What sort of tenants would the WIDC be looking to attract? If it is Provincial Government offices, then it may actually be more cost effective to the taxpayer over the long-term to house these services within a Provincial Government building as opposed to paying out of pocket rent to providers of space in the private sector. One would have to do a fairly thorough analysis to figure that one out.

If this building could be used as a catalyst to develop more value added industries for BC’s timber related products, then yes, it could be a very wise investment. That would have to be supported by other forms of government policy shift, however, and I’ve seen no real evidence that there is any desire to move away from a “chop em down, make 2×4’s and ship em out” mentality. In fact, it seems to be getting worse and I can envision a time in the near future when the “make 2×4’s” part of that equation is gone.

The WIDC would have to part of an overall comprehensive strategy to make sense and I just don’t see any evidence of that taking place.

karjai: “The death of the downtown is not an option if this City is to remain intact.”

Why? It’s been pretty much dead for years. We’ve managed just fine, although it hasn’t stopped the City from trying to find ways of making business locate down there over the past 30+ years.

karjai: “I don’t hear you and Ben offering up any alternatives, just negative attack with nothing in the way of logic or data to back it up.”

The alternative is not to build it and save taxpayers $75 million dollars.

As the world economy sputters along and governments everywhere struggle with huge deficits, now is not the time for pie in the sky projects like this one, and that’s exactly what this is.

“I’m not sure Ben has a handle on what that is and is not.”

Take a drive around and unless you are guided by a white cane it will be pretty obvious there is plenty of vacant space. PG’s population has shrunk at least 10% from the peak so where does the demand come from? Any tenants filling this space will just be leaving an empty space elsewhere, shuffling deck chairs if you will.

IMO Commonwealth Health got the free money even though it did not meet the criteria set by NDI Trust, no new businesses created(except a bit for a moving company) Is it fair to penalize the landlords of the vacant offices when they are competing with someone who has their capital costs covered by public $$$.

That being said I have mixed feelings about turning the project down outright. It is a matter of timing and what the building will be used for. When we are ready that might not be the case in Victoria(ie no sign of an NDP MLA in the city:) If it were at UNBC and used a floor or two to house an engineering program I’m sure it would garner more support.

To drop a building downtown with no real purpose just because we have a big $3.5 million vacant lot is foolish.

Re: downtown revitalization and the WIDC, I don’t think it would have all that much of an impact to be honest. It would just be another building that people head to for 8AM and leave at 5PM. I don’t think it would do much to keep people in the downtown core or attract them to it.

If the city was thinking seriously about downtown revitalization (wishful thinking I know), the plots of land where the new RCMP station is going and the old PG Hotel site would have been set aside for things that would actually contribute to a downtown. Perhaps some high density residential housing, space for a market, new retail space, park areas, etc. An office building won’t do it.

As for JohnnyBelt’s question of why a downtown is necessary, all one has to do is visit a city that actually has a downtown core to see why they are so valuable to a city. It’s great to have a place where you can walk around and do some shopping, go out for dinner, socialize with members of your community, partake in various activities, etc. It’s about building and maintaining a community. Terrible idea I know.

The last big building that was going to save the whole downtown core was the courthouse. How has that worked out? Lots of pawn shops and second hand stores within a stones throw.

Sure that area might be better without the Mac and the Canada but I’m sure they would have gone down the same path as the Europe and the Columbus by now. Some may argue that the core was better when there was a skid block as the denizens of those establishments have spread throughout the whole area since,

NMG: “It’s great to have a place where you can walk around and do some shopping, go out for dinner, socialize with members of your community, partake in various activities, etc. It’s about building and maintaining a community.”

And none of this can happen without a downtown? Last I checked, we have lots of places to shop, eat, and socialize.

“And none of this can happen without a downtown? Last I checked, we have lots of places to shop, eat, and socialize”

Based on my observations of cities I’ve visited over the past year and a half in Ontario, Quebec, New York State, Vermont and New Hampshire, no, those activities do not happen near as often in PG as they do in cities with what I would call “established” downtown cores and the related sense of community and socialization that comes along with that. PG is a hermit community by comparison.

NMG:
Unrelated to this topic, I am just curious(as a CFL fan) how is the re-developement of Landsdowne Park and Frank Claire Stadium coming along ? I can’t find any recent info. I also read Ottawa is getting AA baseball and NASL soccer. Is Ottawa booming ? Go Sens!

Is it possible that the Liberals are tryng to download their debt on the next government when they say good bye to the legislature after the next election.

And the City killed downtown with the great plan they had for Westgate and are now scrambling to fix a screwup.
Cheers

Hey middle finger,

To the best of my knowledge, the Landsdowne redevelopment is certainly going ahead. Last I heard, the stadium would be ready for the 2014/2015 CFL season. There was a great deal of opposition to the project by people who live in the Glebe and it was held up for quite some time, but it’s now a go. I think it’s going to end up being a really nice mixed use area down there once it’s all completed. It’s already gorgeous by the canal as you probably know. I heard that AA baseball is coming,but I hadn’t heard about NASL. If true, I suspect that could coincide with the stadium redevelopment.

I haven’t been here long enough to really know what a “boom” looks like out here, but there most definitely is lots of building going on. There are loads of high density residential projects on the go right downtown and the suburb communities are also growing lots. I’m out in Kanata and it seems like there is a new residential development popping up every month. Fields that were empty when I moved here last Spring are now completed and full of homes and condo’s. It’s amazing the pace with which stuff goes up here and the manner in which development occurs. There is also lots of new commercial development all over the city, so I’d definitely say that there is growth for sure. It’s a good place to be.

If the provincial government wants to recirculate some of our tax dollars back into PG and create an opportunity for diversity then I support that. I hope they have a good plan.

Thank-you NMG. I’m jealous in PG.