Having had no interest in urban development, coupled with the fact I didn't read the SP daily (although I delivered it), much of the information in this article is new, and gives me something to dream about while I sleep tonight
The sword fighting between the city and school board certainly played a role in the subsequent loss of a downtown Cameco HQ (drop in uranium prices played a small part too).
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Was the plan too grand?
Gerry Klein. Star Phoenix. Saskatoon, Sask.: May 16, 1998. pg. C.1
It has been called the most studied piece of real estate in Saskatchewan's history.
It has also been the subject of hundreds of closed-door meetings, a political football in at least four municipal elections, and it has all but controlled the civic agenda for two decades. It has been a landscape for civic dreams and the site of bitter disappointments and lost opportunities.
The prospect of developing the land between of 20th Street and the South Saskatchewan River began with a period of unbridled optimism in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
The city had reason for optimism after Toronto architect Raymond Moriyama published his report on the Meewasin Valley Project in 1978, said Bert Wellman, director of planning and development for Saskatoon at the time.
The provincial government had pumped millions of dollars into the revitalization of Regina's downtown with construction of the Cornwall Centre. It had also taken the lead in a major project in Prince Albert, and Saskatoon was identified as the next big perhaps the biggest project the province would undertake.
"At the time we started out we had reasonable grounds to believe we would get significant provincial involvement," Wellman said. "At one stage we were pretty sure we had secured SaskTel as a major tenant. There was also talk of a federal building and a court house.
"We were reasonably sure on all of these."
Cliff Wright, Saskatoon's mayor at the time, said the greatest reason for optimism came from the Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan.
Potash was selling for about $170 a ton and the Crown corporation wanted to build a head office on a site near the old Saskatoon Arena, Wright said. SaskTel then decided it would rent space in a new office building that could be built across the street.
"I was in close discussions with PCS and with SaskTel. They were both quite serious," he said.
The project had the approval of Allan Blakeney's NDP government which wanted to use the upper levels of the project to bring housing into the downtown.
PCS was considering a building that would include a simulated trip into a mine.
"It was very real and it was an alive and incredible concept," Wright said.
Wellman said there was tremendous interest in the proposal.
"We knew this thing was a go. We had major (international) hotel chains wanting into this thing in Saskatoon.
"We had all the prospects for this thing to go and to go quickly."
City officials acted quickly. In September 1980, the provincial Department of Urban Affairs was discussing projects proposed for Prince Albert and Swift Current and where Saskatoon fit into future plans.
In October Wright asked the city's planning and development committee to look into a project for Saskatoon's south downtown.
In November Wellman was told to start buying up land between 19th and 20th Streets and First and Second Avenues Block 146.
On Christmas Eve 1980, Custom Cleaners' property was the first to be turned over to the city.
"There wasn't a lot of public debate," Wellman said. "I was put in charge of land acquisition and I simply began assembling the land.
"Things went well at first. We were averaging about $50 a square foot and we didn't have to expropriate any land until the end."
Discussions continued with the Crown corporations, but the delays were becoming costly.
It didn't take long for the shine to wear off. When Wright went to the school board offering to buy its land, he was disappointed at the response.
"The school board always had a very proprietary interest in this land almost as if they each held it themselves. They didn't have a sense they held it in trust for the people of Saskatoon," Wright said.
"They were offered a very, very large sum (by PCS). I presented it to them and the only reaction I got was: Couldn't we get a million (dollars) more?' "
The board, however, felt the offers it received from the city always deflated the value of the land.
"We were always protecting the interests of the public board's ratepayers," said Bob Thompson, who was elected to the board in 1982 and served as its chair from 1987 until 1994.
"It was a fine point but we felt that this land only belonged to a portion of the city's ratepayers."
Before a deal could be struck, the price of potash dropped to less than $35 a ton and PCS no longer wanted in, Wright said. The hotel chain adopted a policy of not building in cities with fewer than 400,000 people and the newly elected Grant Devine government opposed government involvement in commercial and residential property developments.
By the end of 1982, a report on the city's south downtown by Arcop Associates was released, identifying Block 146 as being ripe for development. The city continued acquiring the land.
The city continued to assemble the land, planning to as private developers for proposals on what should be built there.
"I watched with interest while the city assembled that land. I couldn't understand why it didn't make any effort to assemble the land south of 19th Street," said Herve Langlois, a former senior school board bureaucrat who was the board's point man for the south downtown project.
The board believed that if the city was willing to spend $50 to $55 a square foot for the relatively less valuable Block 146, the board could expect a premium for its prime real estate, he said.
"We tried to do a land exchange with the city, but that went nowhere," Langlois said.
Meanwhile, the Gathercole Centre, which was built for $390,000 in 1930, needed to be replaced or refurbished.
Langlois said the board hoped to raise enough money from the sale of its riverbank property to spare taxpayers the expense of building a new office building and education centre.
While it continued to assemble the land, the city had a close call with the federal government. It conducted a survey of federal offices around Saskatoon and found something like 54 different locations, Wright said.
"We thought this was a great selling point. With all this concern over alienation and separation, we told them the federal government should be seen," he said. "We told them you can just say Here we are, your great big friendly federal government right in the heart of your city.' "
Federal officials said Ottawa's name would be destroyed in Saskatoon if the government vacated 54 office buildings.
The federal government had built a major building in Edmonton to consolidate all its offices and ran into a lot of criticism from the private sector which had to give up federal offices as tenants, Wellman said.
He received a call from a contact in Ottawa one day, making it clear the Edmonton experience would be the last and Saskatoon wasn't to get a major building.
By the mid 1980s, it had become clear the city was going to have difficulties with Peter Shinkaruk, a property owner who refused to sell his land on 20th Street in Block 146.
Continued on page c2
Page c2
Land of dreams
"We bogged down completely on Shinkaruk's property," Wellman said. "I dealt with this for three years before I could get permission to expropriate."
In March 1986, Wellman got clearance to expropriate Shinkaruk's property. It took until December 1987 for the matter to pass through the courts and by then, the city's economic boom had gone bust. Still, the city went ahead.
Wellman sent out about 75 invitations for proposals as the next step in developing the property. The idea was to contact those with the best ideas, obtain detailed drawings, and then choose the best and let the building begin.
By now the school board had the feeling City Hall was discounting its concerns.
"The city resisted seeing the board as equal partners on a local government level," Thompson said.
"The hook has always been, first of all, that the board was never invited to participate in discussions (with potential developers) . . . and the city would always come back to us with an offer we thought deflated the value of the property.
"We kept saying it would have been nice to have consultation. We knew they were (having discussions), we just thought the land owners should have been involved. The price always seemed more in line with what the developer was asking, rather than what we thought the land was worth.
"A couple of times over the years the board got close to negotiating a deal with agencies that would have met their needs and ours. We always had the impression that if the city would have come up with something (similar), it would have gone ahead."
Further complicating matters was the issue of mixed jurisdiction. While the city owned some of the land, the province's planning laws gave it authority to regulate all of the land including the school board's property. Added to that was the regulatory role of the Meewasin Valley Authority laid out in provincial legislation.
"There was some territorialism," Thompson said. "We were always at the bottom of that. We had to satisfy (the development plans) of the MVA and meet conditions set out in the (city's) guidelines."
This conflict was highlighted at a council meeting when Thompson and Langlois came to a public hearing to object to zoning changes that restricted the board's use of the property. Council passed the changes but later brought in amendments to address these concerns.
"I attended something like 26 meetings with the MVA and the city over the DCD guidelines," Langlois said. "We tried to make it more flexible so a developer could come in and be creative. It was difficult, there's no doubt about it, but we finally hammered out a package."
Some of the differences between the two bodies was more perception than reality.
While the city was seeking its developer, the school board was advised by its legal counsel that it could develop its own property or sell it, but provincial laws restricted it from participating in a development that included city land, Thompson said.
The school board sent out about 80 proposal calls of its own.
By this time Langlois and Wellman were having private meetings on a regular basis to make sure the two public bodies wouldn't sabotage each other.
"We made sure our respective proposals referred to each other's site," Langlois said.
"We were not working at cross purposes," Wellman said. "Our administrations worked well together. We knew that our successful proponent would have talked to the school board as well."
The city's proposals were for Block 146 and the arena site on the south side of 19th Street. It also indicated the school board had a similar interest in development, Wellman said.
The economy on the Prairies wasn't good, however, and neither efforts brought many offers.
By now Langlois told the board he believed it would never receive the money the land was worth. On his advice, the board began to sock away hundreds of thousands of dollars each year so it would eventually have enough money to begin financing for a new facility.
"The idea was to make the cost of the new school board building completely independent of the sale of the property," he said.
As Saskatoon geared up for local elections in 1988, Saskatoon's next, best shot at a getting major anchor into the downtown was gelling behind closed doors.
Cameco came to the school board with drawings for a new office one that would house Cameco and the school board, Langlois said.
Shortly after the election that brought Mayor Henry Dayday into office, the board brought the drawing to City Hall to find out what changes should be made in order to adapt to zoning regulations and transportation concerns.
"It was all very preliminary, but Cameco went so far as to have artists' sketches done," Langlois said. "I thought it was a very serious proposal."
The board was shocked to discover later that the city began courting Cameco for a project on its own land.
"Essentially the city played two roles, one as regulator and one as owner of some of this land. When the Cameco plan was on the table, we had to go to the city as regulator, but the city wanted Cameco on its own property," Langlois said.
"It was some months later we learned, indirectly, the city was trying to market its land."
Wellman recalls Cameco coming in with a proposal worth about $45 million. It was to be built on the old arena site.(*See note at top of story)
"It failed because we couldn't get the school board property," he said.
Dayday said he never heard of the proposal to build Cameco's office on school board property.
Almost from the day he took over the mayor's job in 1988, he was in almost daily contact with Cameco trying to get a head office constructed in the downtown, he said.
"We knew Cameco wanted to build and we went to them and said we could provide you with the land and services," Dayday said. "We identified six or seven sites including the one where the school board wants to build now."
Continued on page c3
Page c3
While Langlois feels Cameco was driven off by the jurisdictional dispute, Dayday said the project was killed by a sharp drop in the price of uranium.
"At the end of the day we were told (Cameco's) board would never give up the money to build this kind of development in the downtown when it could build on 11th Street for half the price," he said.
While it would be too simple to attribute the growing number of public disputes between the board and the city strictly to personalities, Thompson recalls former mayor Cliff Wright had a knack "of bringing folks together."
This was a view shared by former councillor Mark Thompson (no relation to Bob).
"Wright was incredibly brilliant," he recalls . "He was a deal maker."
Mark Thompson was elected to council in 1985 and remained on council until a 1994 when he made an unsuccessful run for the mayor's chair and election in which the south downtown played a key role.
Dayday denies any personality conflict with the board. He spent much of his teaching career as an employee of the school board and always felt he was treated well, he said.
Early in his first term as mayor, Dayday accompanied MVA director Fred Heal to Baltimore for a conference and came back with a plan for a concerted development proposal.
With provincial funding, the mayor's task force was established to develop an overall vision for the south downtown.
In 1991, in the midst of the hoopla over the mayor's vision statement and a civic election in which development of the south downtown played a key role Mark Thompson brought council a confidential deal from Toys R Us. The giant retailer was offering to buy the northern third of the city's block for $1.5 million. It would build according to the city's architectural specifications and it would provide the city with a $1 million for easements and property improvements.
"We didn't want that kind of development to anchor our south downtown," Dayday said
The first, and only development to take place in the south downtown came in the year after the election with the construction of Clinkskill Manor, a government-subsidized seniors' highrise on land near the old arena site. Although the election brought a lot of pressure on the city to do something on this property, the seniors complex broadsided the school board.
"Here you have the mayor's vision of the south downtown and all the work of the task force, and then you have Clinkskill Manor that never fit in with any of it," Langlois said.
"I remember, we all looked at this. We liked the project, but it was clearly in the wrong place."
"People always asked me Why is (Clinkskill) there,' " Mark Thompson said.
Unlike Toys R Us, Clinkskill fit perfectly with all past and current visions of the south downtown because of its residential component, Dayday said.
It was also the last subsidized housing project ever built under the old program run by the federal government and the province and city's ability to secure the project resulted in a multi-million dollar investment in Saskatoon, he added.
The rift between the board and the city was detrimental to development, Mark Thompson said.
"The board held the most important cards. The city should have negotiated in good faith to get those cards. Instead, we missed the opportunity to have a single person with the authority and accountability to deliver," he said.
By opting for part-time negotiators, the city ended up with part- time results, he added.
"I think some people were of the view the city could bully the school board under the premise this was public property and belongs to the people of Saskatoon," he said. "I think that was a mistake."
But Bob Thompson realized the city was in a quandary. It was feeling heat for spending millions buying land while losing millions in property taxes yet it was also under pressure to get something done.
"Over the years the city has come under some valid criticism over the cost of gathering property near the south downtown. When people think of the south downtown, however, they think of the riverbank and we have come under criticism for not letting this go," he said.
"There was a sense we were saying the city spent too much money (on the land it acquired), but wasn't willing to spend money to buy the most valuable land."
In October, 1992, Saskatoon residents were told their city could become home to a River Centre which would include an artificial river dripping from the top floors to the bottom, detailing the trip water would take from the Rockies to the Hudson Bay. The favored location for the building would be on the A.L. Cole site, west of the freeway and it was being promoted by the MVA, the school board and downtown businesses.
The proposal grew in popularity after a number of prominent Saskatoon people took a trip to Chattanooga, Tenn., to see how that city's centre worked.
"I refused to go on the trip to Chattanooga," Langlois said.
Chattanooga is situated in a area where it could draw from millions of potential tourists, while Saskatoon's ability to draw people to its centre was considerably restricted by geography, he said.
By late 1993 the province was once again involved. A proposal came forward for a development that would include a casino, a convention and trade centre and a farmers market. That notion was defeated by a plebiscite that coincided with the civic election.
The province initially contacted Saskatoon business groups about this project and the city was only invited along as observers, Dayday said.
The original proposal was for a convention centre but that ran into controversy when downtown hotels and the Centennial Auditorium raised objections about the subsidized competition.
"Things started to fall apart and, all of a sudden, a casino component was added," Dayday said.
Although the initiative was being directed out of Regina, the city couldn't get any assurance the province would take responsibility for operating the development or pay for any losses should it fail, he said.
Saskatoon residents eventually voted for a bylaw that prohibited the city from selling its land for a casino or convention centre.
In spite of the lost opportunities, former mayor Wright said something will be built on this land and it will be something all Saskatoon is proud of.
"It seems the larger municipality is giving this the discussion that it should and I think it will come off," he said.
It may be, however, that whatever is built there will lack some components of earlier proposals such as a head office of a world- class company. Saskatoon has few and good opportunities with Cameco and PCS have already been squandered.
Wright said there is still room for a federal building and such a structure would be good for Saskatoon and good for Canada.
Langlois said previous visions of south downtown may have been too ambitious.
"The problem we all ran into is that we always thought of a development that would only be viable with two times our population," he said.
"I often thought if we could develop something for 30 or 40 years, then take it down and get the development we want when the population is there."
Mark Thompson said there was simply too many cooks.
"Why it never happened, I think, was in part because of personality conflicts and because there were too many people involved in this entity we call the south downtown."
Fig. - 1
In 1978 Toronto architect Raymond Moriyama released a comprehensive report on the Meewasin Valley Project containing suggestions about what could be done with the south downtown, including: (A) the Midtown Plaza; (B) 21st Street; (C) Second Avenue; (D) commercial and residential development; (E) civic and cultural complexes; (F) an enclosed walkway; (G) a winter garden on the A.L. Cole site; (H) a riverside promenade; (I) the Freeway Bridge; (J) the Victoria Avenue Bridge; and (K) the Broadway Bridge.
Fig. - 2
The MVA, the city and the school board chipped in to pay for the South Downtown Urban Design Study in 1982. Compiled by Arcop Associates, the plan called for converting part of Second Avenue into a pedestrian mall, creating weather-protected pedestrian links between buildings in the downtown, and new buildings on the A.L. Cole site and the Midtown Plaza's land that now contains Toys R' Us. The proposal also included commercial and residential developments, atriums on either side of First Avenue, and a winter garden on the school board property.
Fig. - 3
Mayor Henry Dayday created a task force to set up a formal structure for developing the south downtown shortly after taking office as mayor in 1989. Paid for by the province, the mayor's task force gathered all the previous visions of the area and incorporated them into a single plan which included a centerpiece clock tower at the end of Second Avenue and a riverbank park with a promenade along the waterfront.
Fig. - 4
In late 1993 the province and Saskatoon businesses put together a proposal to build a convention centre and casino on the city-owned block between First and Second Avenues and 19th and 20th Streets. The Landing, as the development was called, included a River Centre on the A.L. Cole site based on a design from Chattanooga, Tenn., a marina just east of the freeway and a combined residential and commercial development where the Gathercole Centre is now.
Source - Canadian Newsstand Database - (Copyright The Star Phoenix (Saskatoon) 1998)
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