While Macca was indeed correct, a new hair salon was featured today in the business section of the local fishwrap, this story caught me off guard:
Post office attracts $2.7M bid
High-tech manufacturer wants facility for expansion;city must make decision
Published: Thursday, July 27, 2006
A rapidly expanding Saskatoon manufacturer has put in a $2.7-million bid for the Canada Post building downtown and now officials at city hall have until Aug. 25 to decide whether they will match that offer.
VCom Inc. chief operating officer Hugh Wood says the immediate expansion needs of the broadband equipment maker are driving a plan to move administration, research and development staff to new space so VCom can utilize almost all of its Cardinal Crescent facility for manufacturing.
He says the Canada Post building at the corner of 23rd Street and Fourth Avenue would meet VCom's needs for several years and could be adapted for immediate use without spending a lot of money.
"The floors we are interested in are where they did sorting and it's all wide open space, much like our existing building here (on Cardinal)," he said. "It's an open concept, yet there are some offices on upper floors facing city hall . . . so it's a good mix of offices and open space."
Wood says the 90,000-square-foot Canada Post building, despite being almost 50 years old, is a bargain at the price bid, which equates to about $30 a square foot.
"It would cost at least twice that to build, and maybe with that kind of quality, three or four times," Wood said.
Mayor Don Atchison, who learned of the competitive bid Wednesday, says it is too early to say whether the city will go ahead and exercise its right of first refusal and buy the post office building. However, he says it's good news that a Saskatoon company is growing and is interested in downtown real estate.
"That means people believe in the downtown area and things are good down here as opposed to other cities where everyone's leaving them," he said.
The relatively low price of $2.7 million for the post office building suggests city hall will more than likely exercise its option. However, Wood says he is open to talking to city hall officials if the plan to expand Saskatoon Police Service functions into the Canada Post building doesn't have to happen right away.
Trevor Bell, manager of the city land bank, says the city just learned of the private bid and will now have 30 days to consider whether to exercise its right of first refusal on the Canada Post building. City hall made a direct offer for the building earlier this year, but Canada Post had to put it on the market and advertise it nationally to find out market value of the building.
Wood says the price of real estate is so attractive in Saskatoon that the company cancelled plans to build a new research building in Victoria, B.C., where company co-founder and CEO Surinder Kumar resides.The company, now traded publicly on the TSX, is headquartered in Victoria, but more than 90 per cent of its nearly 600 employees are in Saskatoon.
Kumar and Wood were both electrical engineering professors at the University of Saskatchewan when they founded VCom, originally known as Wavecom.
Wood says 100 people in the research department work in Saskatoon and only a small handful of R&D and head office people are in Victoria.
The company currently has 450 production workers on Cardinal Crescent working two shifts to produce components for both cable and wireless broadband equipment that delivers services such as television, voice and e-mail to home users.
Wood says the company owns more land off Cardinal Crescent in the airport industrial area and would prefer to build an office campus in the long term. However, the company's original Cardinal Crescent building is now leased to Marriott International for a call centre on a long-term basis so it can't be utilized, he explained.
Saskatoon Police Service leadership has had their eye on the Canada Post building for several years as a lower cost alternative to new construction that would double the size of the police station. A new building was estimated to cost $50 million.
Whoever the ultimate buyer of Canada Post's 45-year-old building will be, the federal Crown corporation has an 18-month transition schedule out of the facility, according to regional spokesperson Malcolm French.
"In either case, we will be leasing back the space until late 2007," he said.
He said Canada Post will relocate any regional administrative staff and any remaining sorting functions to its main Saskatoon sorting plant on 51st Street. As well, Canada Post would then seek either another building to buy or lease in the downtown area to house its retail store and customer lock boxes.
Source
I like it. I hope the city lets it go through. Bringing private sector jobs downtown is far superior to giving public sector workers bigger desks. As the library -- at the same intersection-- needs replacing perhaps city hall/the police can perhaps look there to expand. The police also have their beloved surface parking that could be used more efficiently.
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