P.G. Hotel Demolition and Clean Up Could Top $1 million

Monday, October 18, 2010 04:00 AM

Prince George, B.C.- The bill for the demolition of the P.G. Hotel and the work needed to bring the soils back to acceptable environmental requirements for any redevelopment, could top $1 million dollars.

Prince George City Council will receive a report this evening that asks for approval to apply for funding from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ “Green Municipal Fund”.

That fund can provide grants for site remediation, it also offers below market loans for demolition and remediation.

According to the report to Council, the demolition of the P.G. Hotel would cost about $600 thousand, but the environmental site assessment “identified soil contamination from previous uses of the site that must be addressed before development of the site for future use.” That soil remediation could cost anywhere from $300 thousand to $450 thousand making the total site clean up cost in the $900 thousand to $1,050,000.00 range.

The City paid $2.5 million for the hotel and the adjacent parking lot.

The cost of the clean up is not in the City’s budget, but the FCM grant could be for as much as half the cost of the demolition and clean up.

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Posted on Monday, October 18, 2010 04:00 AM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: acrider54 on October 18 2010 5:31 AM

Wonder why business license fees are going to go up?

Posted by: He spoke on October 18 2010 7:14 AM

Nothing that penny match can not solve.

Posted by: seamutt on October 18 2010 8:21 AM

Interesting how the hotel gets flipped costing taxpayers much money. Then taxpayers get stuck with the demolition and cleanup bill while the company that benifits the most sits back and watches all that taxpayer money spent to the company advantage.

Wonder if the site will be sold at a firesale price after cleanup?

Posted by: PrinceGeorge on October 18 2010 9:06 AM

Boondoggle?

Posted by: Palopu on October 18 2010 9:30 AM

Vintage Pr George manipulation. The City had to know that they would be responsible for the clean up when they purchased the bulding.

Can we assume they knew the cost of clean up, but went ahead anyway with the hope that they could get some of the funding for the clean up from the FCM grant. What if they dont get it??? Then we are stuck for $3.5 Millin for this lot, add in the $2.75 Million for the lot for the new Police Station and we have just spent over $6 Million for real estate. Wonder why your taxes go up.

This is just the tip of the iceburg. The City has been pissing money away on real estate for years. They have the property on 4th and Scotia that they were going to use for the Community Energy System, which will now be located at Lakeland Mills. Why wouldnt they use this property for the new Police Station??? Perhaps the area is not upscale enough for the police.

In any event it would be nice to have someone track the City's spending on various real estate ventures over the past 10/15 years. I can gaurantee you it would knock you socks off.

Posted by: onemansthoughts on October 18 2010 9:38 AM

If there is contaminated soil under the PG hotel, the previous owners should be liable, and have to pay to clean it up. The city didnt do due diligence. They should have asked for an environmental Phase 1 study, which the previous owners are suppossed to have.Its such a shame that the city enters into this stuff without their eyes open.

Posted by: porter on October 18 2010 9:43 AM

If council doesn't have someones ass about this, there should be a recall. How can a decision this bad have made it through the city. $3.5 million for that land, come on, no one is ever going to pay that.

Posted by: crazylegshinch on October 18 2010 9:51 AM

A million dollars seems like a lot. Really couldn't they have bought a can of gas and a match and gotten rid of it in the only fitting way?

Posted by: Retired on October 18 2010 10:01 AM

Careful crazylegshinch, your promoting criminal activity. They could take you seriously at City Hall.
Cheers

Posted by: Harbinger on October 18 2010 11:02 AM

Why not , when the building is being torn down, offer the homeless all the copper pipe in the building? Should contain a few pounds. I don't think my city hall should be in the real estate business. I'd rather have better roads than have a "landlord" always raising my taxes when his real estate deals don't pan out.

Posted by: Palopu on October 18 2010 11:22 AM

The City is not so stupid as to not know who is responsible for cleaning up any soil contamination. This is the first thing that anyone who was buying property would check out.

I suspect that they went ahead and bought the property, knowing full well that they would be responsible for the clean-up.

Seems that they were hell bent on buying it. Wonder why?? To much going on behind closed doors in this City. We never hear about anything until it is a done deal.

Posted by: I.Heart.PG on October 18 2010 2:39 PM

Is the $300k - $450k cost of remediation just for the land that the PG Hotel sits on? It seems more likely that it would include the remediation of the soils for the parking lot that the City has owned for years. For those unaware, the Achillion restaurant was the original bus depot for Prince George, fully equipped with underground fuel tanks that may or may not be the source of soil contamination. I find it unlikely that enough booze leached from the PG Hotel to cause soil contamination.