The Downtown Revitalization Seeds
Monday, January 7, 2013 @ 5:00 AM
Prince George, B.C. – Downtown Prince George has seen little in the way of actual revitalization despite the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on land assembly for projects which have yet to materialize.
The scenario is such that the Northern Development Initiatives Trust has filed suit in Supreme Court to foreclose on a number of properties purchased by Commonwealth Campuses Inc. on funds borrowed from NDI Trust.
In order to get a grasp on what took place during the period 2007- 2013 in the downtown, the involvement of Commonwealth Health, Commonwealth Campuses, Commonwealth Realty Corporation, the City of Prince George, the DBIA, UNBC, CNC, Pat Bell, Shirley Bond and a host of other bit players, it is important to have a look back at just what was promised, who got the money for what, who made the decisions, and what eventually took place.
It would appear the most recent seed for downtown revitalization was planted on September 27th-2008. That was the day the then President of Downtown Prince George (the DBIA) Shari Green, spearheaded a community rally at 3rd & George St. Among the speakers were former Premier Mike Harcourt, who was paid by the, “Let’s Get Started” team, the identities of members of the team were never really clear. The speakers included Bruce Strachan, former MLA and former City Councillor.
Green said at the time, “The City is the largest land owner in the Downtown. I would like to see the City leverage those lots to their full potential, by putting our request for proposals from developers.” It was not long after the rally that Green declared her candidacy for City Council. She ( as well as four other candidates) would receive financial support from a group called "Let’s Go Prince George" headed by Commonwealth Financial’s Dan McLaren. "Let’s Go" was made up of prominent business people (including Gordon Langer, David McWalter and Grant Zimmerman) who contributed time and money to try and get a slate of pro-downtown revitalization candidates elected. Green’s campaign would receive a little more than $7 thousand from Let’s Go Prince George, about one third of her total campaign expenditures that year. She would win a seat as would two of the other candidates supported by Let’s Go, namely Brian Skakun and Garth Frizzell.
As history has shown, the City, while Green was a Councillor, went on to purchase yet more property in the Downtown core, including the PG Hotel site which cost $2.5 million dollars, along with a further $1 million in cleanup costs for a total of $3.5 million dollars.
Northern Development Initiatives Trust was given the task of administering the Community Adjustment Fund which fell under the Federal Government’s Western Diversification umbrella. On June 19th – 2009, it was recommended Commonwealth Health be granted an interest free loan of $1 million dollars from the Community Adjustment Fund to help renovate the Chances Gaming Centre which at the time, was the newest building in the downtown core. Included in the request for $1.5 million from the fund (which was later reduced to $1 million) was $76, 923 assisted costs for what was termed “the New Downtown Overall Project Management”, including planning, designs and engineering. A project under the guidance of the “New Downtown Implementation Team”.
In the executive summary of the application, Commonwealth President Dan McLaren said, “during the past six months , local private investors, guided by land development professionals have collaborated with the City of Prince George to begin to implement the most ambitious downtown redevelopment project every undertaken in British Columbia.”
The “New Downtown Implementation Team” was made up of:
- Chairman, Dan McLaren , President, Commonwealth Financial,
- Vice Chair : Heather Oland of L&M Engineering, Oland would later become a Director of Commonwealth Campuses and eventually the CEO of Initiatives Prince George, the City’s development corporation,
- David J. McWalter, President of L&M Engineering, he also sat as a Director with Commonwealth Campuses.
- Shari Green, a Councillor and Past President of the DBIA. She is billed as being the “City of Prince George Representative”
- Bruce Sutherland, Chair of the Northern Development Initiatives Trust and Chair of the CNC Board . As President of WOLFTEK Industries in Prince George, his company shared a suite with Commonwealth Financial at the CN Centre. During his time as Chair of NDI Trust, the Board would approve a loan of up to $8.8 million to Commonwealth Campuses.
- Dr Charles Jago, who at the time was the interim President of UNBC, would write a letter of support for downtown re development. In his April 6, 2009 letter he said, “we are working with the province of BC to establish a Wood Innovation and Design Center in the downtown.”
- Edward Hauset and Edward Robello, brought up the balance of the group.
In the Community Adjustment fund application guidelines it states that proposals for retail operations “will not normally be supported” but a large component of the building was, according to the proposal, earmarked for retail.
On August 5th-2009 Commonwealth Heath Corp entered into an agreement with Northern Development Trust. Commonwealth would receive the $1 million dollar interest free loan it was seeking from the Community Adjustment fund, a taxpayer funded program that was designed to stimulate work in depressed areas of the province.
What is not known is how the Community Adjustment Fund came to the conclusion that the Commonwealth proposal would produce not only immediate jobs but jobs in the future in keeping in line with the mandate of the fund. The application claims that by the end of March 2010, the project would create 352 total person months of employment worth $2.2 million in salaries and wages. The application further states there will be 128 person months of employment created by March 31st 2011 worth $1.89 million in salaries and wages.
There has been no public reporting on whether or not those targets for job creation have been met.
The proposal scored high according to the NDI Trust and the Community Adjustment Fund’s score card:
Given that commercial loans would carry a minimum 7% interest in a depressed market at the time of the loan, Commonwealth enjoyed an approximate interest break of $70,000 dollars at the expense of the Canadian taxpayer in year one alone.
Under the agreement, Commonwealth would repay the loan in 20 equal instalments of $50,000 dollars ending in 2015. They would only pay interest if they failed to meet those payments on time.
There were big plans for the new Commonwealth Health building. In a Commonwealth ad the company referred to phase 1, two floors with a total of 48,000 sq Ft. Phase 2 would make it 3 floors with a total square footage of 72,000 sq ft, and phase 3 would make it 4 floors with a total of 96,000 sq ft .
On March 31st 2010, Commonwealth and the NDI trust signed an amended agreement in which NDI wrote;
We wish to inform you that Northern Development has accepted your request to amend the contract to allow for unanticipated events that have delayed your construction timeline.
Commonwealth Health has most recently run into another issue. When it purchased the Chances Gaming Centre, the property came with a covenant that required the property owner to build 6 residential townhouses. There was a time frame for construction, but an extension has been granted. Most recently, a deadline for submitting an application for a Development permit for the development of the 6 townhouses was missed. The City has indicated it would work with the property owner to achieve compliance.
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Next: Commonwealth sets sites on 400 block of George Street.
***Editor’s Note:
There will be no comments allowed on this series due to the sensitivity of the material.
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