Convenient again how shit starts to go south and certain parties run for the hills. A bit disappointing. But as we've discussed before, the Chipmans have played their cards very well.

Just going through things, I'm realizing now, of course, that they're referring to CityPlace as on Carlton and not Hargrave as I've always understood it to be.

This makes far more sense now. 225 Carlton (though that address likely won't survive) is SoPo or True North Square or whatever it'll be called.

And as late as November of 2013, the Chipmans have been talking about building 2 highrise hotels on that site just as Lakeview was killing their proposal. The idea was because the Place Louis Riel was being removed and the Sheraton already had, there was room for another 500 hotel rooms just to make up the removal of units from the market. Leaving aside those rooms left the market for a reason, they also figured with the Convention Centre right around the corner there would most certainly be room in the market.

Fast forward a year and a half. There's still little demand for another hotel downtown, but one was in the offing as contractual, laid out by the government funding agreements used to pay for the convention centre expansion. Given the caveat on the land and the type of hotel that was demanded by the funding agreement (guests having to be able to collect points would generally point to at minimum a three to four star), the Carlton Inn site was essentially legislated to compete with the Chipman's idea for the SoPo site.

Given what we're hearing right now about the cease & desist letter from CV to Colliers, there's no doubt in my mind that the option True North signed on the Carlton Inn site was never signed for the purposes of acquiring the land and building a hotel. More likely, it was specifically designed for the purposes of tying it up long enough that they'd beat it to market rendering development of the site nearly impossible given both existing demand and what's expected to arise from conventioneers. And anybody out marketing a potential 4-star site attached to the convention centre would certainly prefer to market the attachment to the centre. Unless, of course, CV chilled that pursuit through a strongly worded letter from the legal department - which they did. And just as the MLCC announces their commitment and True North wrangles the Starwood brand with the promise of a 1000 NHL room nights a year the Fairmont would otherwise get, the option on the Carlton Inn site quietly expires while Stuart Olsen takes a 77% discount on their penalty to keep quiet and play ball, all while the taxpayer foots the bill for the remaining cost of the site, subsidizes the shit out of SoPo, and kills the derelict beverage room keeping the entire Chipman family up all night.

Goddamn, it feels good to be a gangster...

If that all comes to fruition then the Chipmans and Thompson will make quite the tidy profit off this little venture if they haven't already.

Jan.20
http://www.wcc.mb.ca/wp-content/uplo...January-20.jpg

http://www.wcc.mb.ca/construction-cam/january-2015/

Pretty..

I still wonder if the Carlton Inn site, after being deemed unable to land a suitable hotel, winds up being a "beer and burgers" type restaurant/bar in the SHED with Chipman controlling the lease if not the lease and operations. Part of the True North operational plan seems to be profiting either through leases, operations or both on pre/post game/event traffic. It would not be surprising in the least to see them open up a Ye's Buffet in the SHED and I am sure they have more brands/concepts lined up.

Strictly in terms of urbanism, even a one-storey food joint would be preferable to the land sitting empty for the next 20 years. Although the SHED must be at its breaking point with respect to casual dining restaurants... the Jets regulars can't be eating out before every game. I mean, there's only so much Boston Pizza and Tavern United that a man can take.

Hulls book store was suggested as another food place by the downtown biz head when it closed but that building is still empty.

Centreventure owns the land and from what I understand (but have no faith is actually true given their rank incompetence) is there's a caveat on the land whereby it has to be a hotel that services the convention centre. True North isn't going to end up with this land given CV's illegal cease & desist nonsense rendering the existing option moot. And since the funding agreements that came from the province and the city demand a hotel on that site, and with the convention centre currently in front of the EPC begging for them to accept the Stuart Olson settlement, neither parties will be discharging that caveat any time soon.

Now, of course, considering that Stuart Olson didn't actually sign the construction contract(!) and could very well walk away with damages from CV if they pushed the issue, this could all end up completely sideways in a way yet unforeseen.

I think the issue here is who owns the site, ie not True North, and perhaps the asking cost. True North has to finish their SoPo/True North Square first.

In terms of demand, try getting a spot in a casual dining place an hour before game time. Most of them are packed. Most also do a reasonable busy lunch business. The question is with five lunches and three event nights a week can you cover your costs?

Probably if your a multi-unit franchise holder (like Richard Enright of Boston Pizza Winnipeg) where you can cover your potential losses on a downtown location with profits from your other locations. That BP apparently has staff from the other stores working there on busy nights so that cuts down on staffing costs.

I don't think that a single operator (unless you have extended family to take a lot of the staff slots at low pay) could come in and make money on that basis.

Maybe if its a corporate location trying to establish a new brand in Winnipeg they may eat the losses.

My friends wife is some type of manager at BP and she works downtown on game days and other busy nights. Then works at her suburban location the rest of the time.

the one thing I don't get in all of this carlton inn thing is what ken reiss was complaining about.....was he saying he was working on a hotel/office project assuming he was going to get the lotteries building?....as if he was the only one interested in that?....because every developer in the city has been salivating over landing lotteries for a decade.

We've been hearing about a MLLC head office move for about that long... how much longer will it take for them to actually do it?!

I think Ken Reiss was complaining about the fact that he was working on a proposal with Stuart Olson to bring a hotel, office, and residential tower to the Carlton Inn site - a proposal Deloitte had shortlisted for MLCC - only to be told by Centreventure that there's no room for a proposal given that True North had already signed an option. And knowing how CV works, they probably met with him numerous times and told him to keep refining the proposal only to tell him one day that the land had now been tied up.

So is Chipman really the bad man he's been portrayed to be? Let me summarize the series of events and tell me where I am wrong in this. Please.

-Longboat secures the 1 year option on developing the MPI lots. This has now dragged on for a couple years. Maybe something nefarious there.
-Longboat is in talks with MLL about locating their head office (and maybe has secured such a lease?) at SoPo or TN Square. Nothing wrong with that.
-Convention Centre expansion requires a hotel as part of the project. Okay.
-Deloitte is courting MLL to locate at their development, with StuartOlson, as part of the convention centre hotel. Okay.
-CV maybe strings Deloitte along keeping their options open. Ultimately tells them MLL is locating at SoPo. Is there something wrong with that? The convention centre things requires a hotel. Not an office, residential, hotel complex. Doesn't seem MLL should have ever been part of anything with the Convention Centre.
-Is it a bit iffy that Chipman has been on the board of CV, who is directly involved with all of this downtown development stuff. Well yeah, but do you know exactly what's been talked about. Maybe that's why Chipman isn't involved anymore with CV. To eliminate this conflict of interest?

I'm impartial, just trying to weed through all of this.

Deloitte is the consulting firm brought in to assess potential space for MLCC. In order to avoid the appearance of what everybody already knows to be true, the province goes and brings in a consultant to given the impression that an independent analysis was done and it turns out SoPo is the best alternative. Of course. It's made even easier when the list of potential new builds in the downtown is down to one.

Secondly, Mark Chipman sat on that board for a long time. It's more telling that he's not on it now than it being some coincidence or a good man trying to avoid a conflict of interest. The shit was about to hit the fan and he ran for cover. In the meantime, he's used CV as his personal land assembly piggy-bank wherein he uses your money to overpay for things he's going to ultimately give himself at a discount. And then when that transaction is done, he's going to use your DRGP money to underwrite the downside risk of the development. You're a very generous, unassuming individual, obviously.

And again, we don't know for certain what's happening with the option on the Carlton site because counter to their legal and ethical requirements to divulge their dealings to council and the public, Centreventure just didn't. The Convention Centre, as part of their funding agreements with the different levels of government, was supposed to have a hotel attached to it. This was told to be the only way to make the whole project work. Leaving aside the merits of that argument, the money flowing was conditional upon that caveat. The Calrton Inn site was then purchased and the new hotel had to go there. It had to. But it was also convenient that the hotel was a flood evacuee problem and had to go. This obviously ran counter to the best interests of Chipman who had just secured a site 100' away. Stuart Olson's (unsigned and unenforceable) contract originally included a $16MM holdback in the event they couldn't find another hotel partner to replace the one they had originally had. They sent Colliers out to find them another one. CV then told Colliers that they were to cease & desist from marketing the property even though Stuart Olson was already ostensibly under contract to build a hotel there and needed a partner.

As a result, CV called Stuart Olson to the table and said, look, don't worry about it, give us $3.75MM instead of the $16MM you owe us and you're off the hook for the hotel. It now turns out that they had unknowingly negotiated that settlement on behalf of the taxpayers at three separate levels with a signed option from True North already in hand. In other words, they stymied Stuart Olson's ability to develop the lot, signed an option with somebody whose interests lie solely in not developing the site , and then let Stuart Olson walk paying less then 25% of their penalty which will no doubt be made up in the form of fictitious change orders on the Convention Centre.

Mark Chipman and his family are the biggest welfare fraudsters in our city. They brought a hockey team here so the fawning praise never ceases, but they are actively working against the best interests of the public purse and they've done it with total impunity.

^ Thanks for the excellent summary.

What a mess. This is starting to rival the notorious Trizec deal of the 1970s on the scale of epic cock-ups by the city and its agencies.

^ other the unfortunate demolishing of an otherwise viable building/business into a parking lot, I am kinda intrigued and (morbidly?) entertained by this whole process. It will be interesting to see what the eventual fall out is.

Yeah thanks for the great summary Simplicity. Makes more sense now.