City tries again to sell Princess lot

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/05/2022 (1386 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The City of Brandon and the Brandon Downtown Development Corporation are trying a new tactic to move development along at the former site of the Strand Theatre on Princess Avenue.

At Monday’s city council meeting, councillors voted in favour of a proposal to list the property for sale at the price of just $1, as well as implementing a tax increment program for it.

The proposal came from Emeka Egeson, executive director of the Brandon Downtown Development Corporation (BDDC).

During a presentation before the vote, Egeson said the market value of the property plus the anticipated costs of developing it made it an unpalatable situation for potential developers.

“We spent a lot of time speaking with stakeholders in the community about what we can actually do with that property,” Egeson told council. “We spoke to developers, we spoke to real estate agents and with the offer we had at that point, no one was willing to take on that project.”

Basically, no one believed there was a profit to be made. That included one of Egeson’s former employers, who he said asked him why he would develop part of downtown when he could go anywhere else in the city and get a quick return on investment.

According to Egeson, the BDDC’s board of directors felt that without selling the property for a low price and providing some kind of subsidy when it comes to municipal property taxes, it wouldn’t be possible to get the property developed.

In real estate listings on both the city and the BDDC’s website, it shows the property being divided into two parcels covering seven addresses on Ninth Street, 10th Street and Princess Avenue. Combined, their assessed land value is worth $1,173,000.

The tax increment financing program approval means a prospective property owner will not pay any incremental increase in municipal taxes caused by development for 20 years. A similar program was put in place for the WestVic Common commercial development being worked on at the site of the former Zellers location on Victoria Avenue West.

Conditions of the subsidized sale include any building being at least three stories and covering at least 40 per cent of the building lot. The purchaser must procure a building permit for the entire site within two years.

If the conditions aren’t met, the city can opt to repurchase the site for the sale price.

Ultimately, the BDDC wants to see more high-density, mixed-use housing and long-term growth options with commercial spaces downtown and hopes the Princess site will be the beginning of that process.

Coun. Barry Cullen (Victoria) asked Egeson what kind of value the city would get in return for selling the property so cheaply.

“It will actually achieve two purposes,” Egeson said. “It will help stakeholders know that the city is interested in the downtown. Apart from that, the approach when it comes to the property is commercial and residential, so we want a mixed-use property that will affect surrounding buildings.”

Though downtown only takes up approximately one square kilometre, Egeson said it represents 13 per cent of the city’s property taxes. He said he believes a project at the Princess site will help improve property values and improve tax revenues, especially because it will bring more people to the downtown core for both services and residences.

According to Coun. Jeff Fawcett (Assiniboine), a study by the accounting firm MNP determined the private investment needed to develop that property is in the $7-million to $10-million range.

In the past, Coun. Shaun Cameron (University) said he remembered in his days with Renaissance Brandon that there were issues getting the properties on Ninth Street developed. He wanted to make sure the BDDC had first tried to sell the property at market rate before incentivizing the sale, which Egeson said they had.

“They [developers] wouldn’t even come to the table because they felt it was a total waste of their time,” Egeson said about the attempt to sell at market value.

It’s not the first time the property in question has been sold for $1. In December 2016, Brandon University purchased the site before the old theatre was demolished from Landmark Cinemas for that same price.

The intent was to either save the building and repurpose it or after it was demolished, build a new downtown presence for the university. However, it never got off the ground and ownership of the property reverted to both the city and the BDDC.

» cslark@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @ColinSlark