City’s back and forth on downtown properties a roller-coaster ride

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/05/2022 (1590 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

“Sometimes when things have been around for a while, they sort of get forgotten about.”

— The late Corey Roberts, former Brandon city councillor, in 2014

It’s fair to say that the City of Brandon has an albatross around its neck in the form of some difficult-to-develop downtown property. It would also be fair to say that as of this week, the city is doing what it can to remove the carcass from its plate of concerns.

During Monday’s meeting at city hall, and following a presentation by Emeka Egeson, executive director of the Brandon Downtown Development Corporation, city councillors voted in favour of a proposal to list the former site of the Strand Theatre for literally next to nothing.

For anyone who has been following the devolution of this particular section of old Brandon from its heyday as a downtown destination spot into a rather uninspiring gravel parking lot, that our community has let it come to this is a shameful chapter in our city’s history.

Vast amounts of taxpayer money has been essentially dumped into a hole of the city’s own making. More than a million dollars was spent on removing asbestos-laden materials from the site of the old Brandon Inn at 156 Ninth St.

Then there was the cost of demolishing the former Brown Block, a decaying structure that collapsed under the weight of wet snow on its roof back in 2011. That cost — in the hundreds of thousands — included the construction of a 10-foot wall to provide support for the former Strand Theatre. Shortly thereafter, at least another $500,000 was spent by the city-funded Brandon Downtown Development Corporation to knock down the former Strand Theatre to prepare for the Brandon University downtown campus that ultimately never came to fruition.

In short, the situation has been a mess. Worse still is the fact that no developer seems willing to take on the property at fair market value. As you can read in today’s paper, Egeson told council the market value of the property, coupled with the anticipated costs of developing the site, made it next to impossible to offload.

The various properties between 10th and Ninth streets that butt up against Princess Avenue are divided into two sites, separated by an alleyway up the middle. Each of these two sites have an asking price of $1, and come with a tax increment financing incentive that will automatically qualify purchasers to not pay any incremental increase in municipal taxes resulting from development on the sites for 20 years.

That’s quite a solid deal for what should be a prime piece of real estate. But much depends upon what kind of development any potential investor has in mind, especially considering the city wants a building or buildings constructed on the sites with a minimum height of three storeys and a minimum total building lot coverage of 40 per cent.

On top of that, the purchaser must have a building permit for the entire site within two years from the date of possession. If these conditions are not met, the city has the right to repurchase the lots for the sale price.

The inability of the Brandon Downtown Development Corporation (formerly Renaissance Brandon) and the city to develop these properties over the past decade has been a disappointing roller-coaster, to say the least. From failed plans on casino development, burnt out hopes of a downtown business school by Assiniboine Community College, to the Brandon University’s failed downtown campus bid, the dreams of development have turned to dust, one by one.

Considering the ongoing process of dilapidation of our downtown core — in spite of city efforts to rebuild the region — it’s difficult to tell whether there is a causal relationship here. Does downtown Brandon continue to deteriorate because there is no large anchor to draw new businesses and crowds to the area? Or is the sorry state of downtown what’s keeping developers from taking a chance and putting their money down? Perhaps it’s both.

One thing is certain: the longer the situation festers, the less likely it will be that investors will want to put their time and money back into the heart of this city. We don’t know that this new tactic by the Brandon Downtown Development Corporation and the city will work. Keep in mind that BU, too, had a sweetheart deal with the city to develop the property. The tax increment financing program only sweetens the pot.

But for those who would complain about the lack of a more robust property sale to recoup city costs of demolition and remediation, we would remind them the city is making a big fat albatross egg on those undeveloped properties right now.

This plan, at least, appears to be a step in the right direction.