Post Turtles.

So the city owns the site of the former Cadillac ranch and noe the site of the former roadhouse Caberet. It certainly seems like this council is determined to not encourage a nitelife in this city. I know there are drug problems but that will never go away. Look out Generator.. there coming for ya!!!!

Really, lets just spend 2.5 million dollars buying a beat up, run down hotel and have no specific plan for it.

Where do we get our money? The development reserve fund? How about using some of those funds to develop a solution to other problems, such as oh, lets see, paving and rebuilding roads?

Mayor Dan reminds me of a teenager who got a creditcard in the mail, but doenst seem to realize that they have to pay the money back so they spend like a drunken sailor.

Mayor Rogers says while people may be chatting up this purchase when they visit at the coffee shop, he wants to make one thing clear “There should be no debate about Council’s determination and resolve to do what we feel is necessary to move this community forward, to seize on the opportunities that present themselves and to make bold decisions on the shared vision that we have together for a better downtown and for a better Prince George.”

He really said that?
I would say that is a direct admonishment of the very loud o250 voices. Keep up the good work.

I have no problem with this acquisition whatsoever. Truth be told, I'm glad we finally have a city council who is willing to do something in the downtown core. Even if the land sits empty for five years, at some point in time it will be redeveloped and the city will have a direct say in regards to who it gets sold to, for what purpose it gets re-developed, etc.

The more land that the city can aquire down there, the easier it will be for them to make the large scale changes that the downtown needs. It would be tough to do that one small building at a time.

I say GOOD JOB to the city for having some foresight to do something that will almost certainly benefit the long-term development of the downtown core.

If this was such a smart move, why did the City sit back and let Northern Initiative Trust loan 75% of the cost of the original purchaser to Commonwealth to buy the building. Why did they not buy it themselves.

All indications are that this block will be developed in part by the Government building the Wood Inititiaves building on it. At least that was the indication in to-days Citizen.

Maybe the Mayor cant say anything until the Provincial Government makes an announcement. In any event the Citizen article indicated that this property will be gifted to the :Province for this buiding.

Seems that there is a lot of horse shit being spewed around as to whats actually going on.

Maybe someone can find out what exactly they mean by **Nearly the same amount paid by Commonwealth Finiancial** does this mean we paid more, or less?

Last but not least. If this is merely a purchase of property for some vague unknown development in the future then why were all the Councillors in attendence. Is purchasing property such a big deal??? If it is, where were the Mayor an Councillors when they paid $2.75 Million for the 4th and Victoria property, or $500,000.00 for the Norgate building.

Remember when they originally said the property would be for a parking lot for the Ramada.

Where is Ben when you need him. Maybe he can shine some light on exactly what the hell is going on. Did we somehow get shafted????

Mayor Rogers says: "There is no specific development in mind for the site."

Yes there is, and it's big. But that's for another level of government to announce. Soon I hope.

My garbage and water taxes should pay for part of the city's legal fees pertaining to this purchase. I'd have preferred Thompson Drive be repaved instead of signs put up to denote bumps. But hey, that's me. City could ave a few bucks if they created a real estate arm at city hall. They don't have one, do they?

Only government would build in a flood plain. Most of George Street is below the 200 year flood plain. Private investment can't get financing to build along that location IMO.

Then there is the matter of the liquor license. I heard about ten years ago Alfredo's was going to sell theirs for $800,000 for the license only... its a license to print money due to the restrictions on licenses in the city. Unless they have plans for a new building I call into question the transferability of this license?

Deals done in shadows like this obviously generate suspicion. That is a lot of money taxed from home owners who have seen increases every year to pay for this.

Well all I can hope for is that they bulldoze that hideous eye sore an empty lot is better than that piece of garbage.

Great news for downtown! Let's bulldzethe old hotel immediately, and let's get started on the other great things that are about to happen on that entire City block!

An interesting picture to accompany this article. We have a very tired looking mayor, flanked by the four new City Council members, and possibly Murray Krause(I think).

Where are the veteran City Councillors? Is Skakun still sulking? Good for the new Councillors taking time from their jobs to attend this important announcement.

I also think the purchase of this hotel is a great thing for Prince George.

It's typical for people to complain and expect the City to magically fix downtown. It's not a simple issue.

I think this will be one step in the right direction to finally bringing the right businesses and people to downtown again.

I was recently in Whitehorse in the Yukon Territory. They are a community of 30,000 people. It snowed one day while I was there. The city streets were cleared in record time. A big reason for this efficiency was due to the fact that the City of Whitehorse has a good plan to grow the City without SPRAWL.......

I wish we could get more density in our downtown. Let's stop building outward and build a better City core. That's how we are going to get better roads. Instead of trying to maintain 600 KM of roadways we should have about half of that with our 80,000 people.

The City should say "NO" to any new subdivisions in this town. Take a look at the eyesore currently sitting above Canadian Tire.......need I say more?

I hope that either the city or Gov BC quickly educates us as to what the intended use of the land is. If it is something good it can spark interest and investors downtown right away.

People move to PG to live in houses and have a yard close to a regional shopping center, not to live downtown much less subsidize a downtown with home taxes. That has always been a fact that has to be respected in a free market democracy.

Whitehorse I agree is a very nice small city with a great downtown, but it too has urban sprawl with its neighborhoods... as much if not more than PG relative to size.

Heck of a deal Dan, it should only be about half a million to demolish and remove the PG Hotel building.Hmmm I wonder if the city hired a consultant on this. The truth is, the city has no business buying up anything in town. Now we have about 5 buildings empty. Not paying taxes. Looks like lack of businesse experience to me. very sad.

So, Ben Meisner knows who you are Mr. PG!! And we the public do not. Hmmmmmmmmmmmm!!! It sounds like you are a person that has a great claim to fame. Why don't you come clean to us Mr. PG??

Let me take a wild guess as to who you are Mr. PG / Bruce. If it is you Bruce, we have kicked you out of every level of Government you have attended. We have told you, through elections, that we don't agree with very much you stand for. We kicked you out, but you still want to try and represent us through the media. GIVE IT UP!!

You are all washed up Bruce. Take your undeserving yearly pension, of what, $100,000.00 per year, supposedly earned from your few useless years as an MLA, and go away. Don't continue to drive your political agenda, when you have NO idea about peoples oppinions, and how that process works.

Bye Bye Mr. PG

taxi, aren't you the guy who has two separate ID's on this site? Maybe more?

I would be careful with the pointed accusations of who's who. 99.9% of the time, they are wrong.

If you think Whitehorse does not sprawl, take a close look at a map of the city with its surrounding suburbs. The city centre itself is confined due to the proximity of an escarpment on which the airport sits with the runway within 1km of the centre of downtown and the river on the other side of downtown. The industrial area and an indian reserve sit close by to the west, with a major and very nice subdivision a bit west. There is also a smaller subdivision across the river and one to the south of the highway.

You are right, Whitehorse is a very nice little northern city. It is also the capital and major population centre of the Yukon, and the Yukon is a territory rather than a province which has a different relationship with the country, including financial support.

CBC North, Yukon seat of government, the college, the hospital, and all the government services are located there. They bring comparatively substantial investment to the community and most is downtown, including the workforce and users.

Here is the OCP process link. They like us, are undergoing a review.
http://www.whitehorse.ca/index.asp?Type=B_BASIC&SEC={1179085B-2BE5-4289-BCAC-5DC3F46B2BB6}

This map will show you an urban containmetn area. They are no different than most other cities ... sprawlsville planning up to now ....
http://ww3.whitehorse.ca/planning/OCP/Map%205%20-%20Urban%20Residential%20Growth%20Plan%20-%20WEB.pdf

Assuming we didn't get fleeced on the price(I'll give the benefit of the doubt here),if no one noticed it was the Throne Speech where the province committed to the Wood centre, even going as far as specifying downtown as the location. When the City saw this deal coming wasn't that the time for Mr Rogers to give old Gordon a call and say " we found the spot for your commitment, time to get out the chequebook, Mr Premier." At no time in the Throne Speech was it said PG would have to foot the bill- and I know what some of you are thinking- it's the same taxpayer. Consider this though- do Whistler residents pay for the massive highway upgrade to get them to the slopes faster and safer from downtown Van.??
Now as to the issue of the tax roll.We've taken another $10,000 worth of assessment out of the DBIA fees- and it's being considered to give a tax holiday from new development on these properties-guess we can just get it out of that transmission guy down the road, how about that? The Steelworkers, I hear they just got a settlement , let's get it out of them. And if you don't think they're not gonna need lots of $$$ I guess you haven't bought any $950 trees for the drunks to wreck lately. Those trees must sprout $20 bills instead of leaves!!
Cheers

Mr. PG, .1% says I'm right on this one!

You're giving yourself far too much credit.