Quote:
Originally Posted by Simplicity
It goes beyond this a little. The city wanted the hotel because the taxation that would eventually arise would be used to underwrite a portion of the $33MM the city had committed to the WCC - an arm's length division of the city. When Stuart Olson couldn't close on the site at a reasonable cost, CV got involved to put the deal together with money that was loaned to it by the city in the form of a line of credit because that's what CV does for the city. They're an arms length development bank (or at least that was their original mandate). And the development agreements with the province and feds had stated that the hotel was to be attached to the WCC because that's the convention centre model and that was the basis under which their funding came. So it's not quite true to say they wouldn't have had to spend the money because it's questionable as to whether there was any expansion at all without that 2nd and 3rd level funding that was at least partially dependent on a hotel.
You're right in that CV ultimately screwed it all up. But that also doesn't mean you'd see $16MM from Stuart Olson. You're better off settling than having the land tied up in a protracted legal battle where the terms of the deal are at issue. Nobody could force the family to sell the hotel. They took what they wanted. The question is really about, as a Winnipegger, you think the Carlton Inn was such a derelict nuisance that taking it out at nearly any cost was worth it.
I'm on the fence about that. Either way, CV should've conceded they were trying to socially engineer an area, taken the writedown and political lashing that went with it, and allowed Stuart Olson to continue at the discount True North was getting. If they were still unable to proceed, then you put it out for RFP. CV didn't quite cost the city $12.75MM like it would appear on the surface. It's far more nuanced than that, unfortunately...
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As for the Carlton Inn itself, I really don't think it was that bad. Sure it wasn't a Delta/Radisson/Alt/Etc, but compared to many of the other hotels like it in the city, it was at least fairly clean outside and didn't look too bad, and there wasn't too many problems there. It had at least been painted recently.
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