Downtown left without solution

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/05/2021 (1825 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

“A university presence in the city’s core will bring dynamic change to downtown Brandon. Brandon University can catalyze the mixed-use development that is critical for downtown revitalization. This is a perfect fit that brings new people, new amenities, and new life to downtown Brandon.”

— Former Renaissance Brandon executive director Elisabeth Saftiuk

In 2016, Brandon University acquired a significant chunk of downtown Brandon in what was hailed at the time by former BU president Gervan Fearon as a “fortuitous opportunity,” one that spoke to “community engagement” that allowed the institution to be a “catalyst for community growth and development.”

It was a fair gamble by the City of Brandon’s council and Landmark Cinemas — essentially “give” downtown property that was lying dormant and stagnating over to a government-funded institution that had potentially deeper pockets and a desire for community building. To that end, BU purchased the former Strand Theatre — before it was demolished — for $1 from Landmark Cinemas. So too the former footprint of the ramshackle Brandon Inn, which cost more than $1 million for the city to tear down, between asbestos removal and the demolition contract. It was also sold to Brandon University for $1, as was the nearby lot at 129 11th St.

A year later, BU anounced that it had hired the University of Winnipeg Community Renewal Corp, and its related organization UWCRC 2.0 to lead the public consultation process to transform the site into an ambitious mixed-use and residential development that would combine new student residences with lodgings for seniors, as well as academic spaces, with the potential for commercial development.

It was an optimistic plan, one that came with an untenable price tag.

Two design concepts were presented to the BU Board of Governors — one of which included an angled eight-storey residential tower and the other a 12-storey residential building — and each were broken into two phases. Both designs would have cost more than $103 million, an impossible amount for a small university, and the hired consultant suggested the board pare down the institution’s expectations.

In the words of board member Brad Zander, the idea was an “absolute no-go.”

“I completely agree with we need to be involved in community engagement and reaching out to the community, but at the direct harm of our students, at the direct harm of incurring an annual loss, that’s not a value proposition,” Zander was comfortable telling students to support, he said at the time.

As a result, the board of governors decided to invite outside proposals in order to have the proposed downtown campus primarily funded, owned and operated by a private developer. In March 2019, the university announced that three proposals had been received — from Sneath Group, VBJ Developments and an entity that called itself the Wheat City Revitalization Partners.

And from there, the project seemingly failed to get out of the gate. The Brandon Downtown Development Corporation (formerly Renaissance Brandon), the City of Brandon and the university announced this week a decision to scrap plans to establish the downtown campus after they were unable to secure a private-sector lead to develop the site.

In his comments to the Sun, BU vice-president of administration and finance Scott Lamont in part blamed the ongoing pandemic for putting the final nail in the project’s coffin. We have no doubt that COVID-19 forced a final decision for the project — it’s certainly causing havoc within our business community and only furthering the deterioration of our downtown district.

But we have to wonder — had the plan been financially attractive for a developer, it seems odd that a developer wouldn’t have found a way to make it work. As it was, it had already encountered financial and logistical roadblocks that limited the scope of the project long before COVID-19 hit.

Alas, it wasn’t meant to be. And here we sit, five years later, and not much further ahead in terms of downtown revitalization. The land in question will be transferred to the BDDC and the City of Brandon, and the process begins again.

If there is a silver lining to this dark cloud that continues to hang over our downtown district, it can be in the lessons learned from these past five years. City council and the BDDC would be wise to entertain projects for the undeveloped downtown property between Ninth and 10th streets that are already in the planning and development stages — something drawn on paper with a viable business plan in place — before making such a gamble again. Neither does it need to be a hugely ambitious project with a price tag to match. There are other cities with downtowns that have undergone redevelopment. We need to be guided by those examples.

And as for Brandon University, it can once again begin paying attention to repairs on its main campus, where longstanding and much-needed renovations projects like that of the John R. Brodie Science Centre have been left on the shelf for far too long.

Ensuring a strong and stable Brandon University campus into the future is arguably in the best interests of this city. Our city will have to find a solution for our downtown development woes by going in a different direction.