City eyes land for bus barns
Purchase, clean-up of site near landfill totals $4.5 million
By David Hutton, The StarPhoenix November 19, 2010 7:54 AM
The multimillion-dollar relocation of two of the most space-consuming city departments now has an address.
The city has an agreement in place to purchase 180 acres of land north of Valley Road near Montgomery Place in southwest Saskatoon from a numbered Saskatchewan company to house the transit headquarters and bus storage barns, as well as the public works department and city yards.
The price: $2.25 million for the land with an extra $2 million needed to clean up the site.
Montgomery residents say the land has long been eyed by its owner for different developments, including a nine-hole golf course, greenhouses and an equestrian show jumping training centre.
Instead, it will likely house hundreds of city buses, snowplows and employees.
Acquiring the land, which requires council approval Monday night, would pave the way for the construction of a multimillion-dollar facility to house the relocated bus barns from south Caswell Hill. The location of the bus barns has been a long-standing problem for neighbourhood residents, who say the noisy and busy facility has no place in a residential area.
The site would also be the new home of the public works department and relocated city yards, which currently takes up 24 acres of storage land in the north downtown.
Given its massive size, the 180-acre site could also host a recycling centre, an impound lot, infrastructure services department offices and a snow dump, a city report said.
While the cost of the project isn't yet known, the transit headquarters alone have been estimated at more than $100 million.
The purchased land is close to the new Circle Drive South bridge, which would allow easy access for buses and snow plows to the city, the report said.
The logic of the move is a departure from the position taken by the city as recently as six years ago, when city staff and engineers said moving the city yards wouldn't be cost-effective or convenient given their downtown location and said a busy railway line cutting across the city yards would also be a strong deterrent against residential development.
But it's part of a city hall strategy to get space-consuming civic operations out of the city centre and develop the north downtown and south Caswell Hill -- two areas of the city with the largest opportunities for infill and increased population.
Earlier this week, a city committee reserved the 100-year-old John Deere building for the University of Saskatchewan's proposed school of architecture and set in motion a master planning process to redevelop the north downtown.
A master plan to turn south Caswell Hill into an arts district after transit leaves has already been passed by council.
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http://www.thestarphoenix.com/City+eyes+land+barns/3852686/story.html#ixzz15jvJ8Nuj
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This is some good and bad news. I really like that the busbarns etc will be moved but it really comes at the cost of the neighbourhood of Montgomery. The golf course, greenhouse idea sounds really nice but perhaps it can be built elsewhere to help define the neighbourhood? I'm excited to see what the development in the north will look like. I hope that the city has some major architectural controls in place. Has anyone seen the master plan to convert Caswell Hill into an arts district?
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