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Terrace Co-op lands environmental clearance cost rises

The goal is to complete sale of lands to Calgary hotel developer
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THERE’S been a delay

THE city estimates it will have spent nearly $450,000 by the time it obtains the environmental all-clear on a large section of the former Terrace Co-op property on Greig Ave., after which it can close a sales deal with a Calgary hotel developer.

Approximately three-quarters of the amount will have come from federal and provincial grants already received or currently being applied for, and the remainder coming from city coffers, according to figures from the city.

It was expected that last year, it would complete final work to obtain certification from the provincial government, indicating that the property is clear of contaminants from when the now-defunct Terrace Co-operative Association had a large shopping and gasbar complex.

The completion date has now been extended to spring, say city officials.

Of that projected spending of $441,652, officials indicate that close to one-third is now being spent on the final push for clearance.

“The final stage of remediation works includes completion of the detailed site investigation and a submission to the Ministry of Environment for a Certificate of Compliance,” said city official Brian Doddridge in an email.

“Once this is achieved the property can be sold to Superior Lodging.”

That is the aim of the environmental clearance, which will enable the city to close its sales deal with Superior Lodging of Calgary, a deal worth $877,500.

That was the price first announced in 2013 at a time when local and regional economy was super-charged with intense speculation about liquefied natural gas development and when the aluminum smelter at Rio Tinto Kitimat was being rebuilt, the BC Hydro’s Northwest Transmission Line was in construction.

The deal covered 2.79 acres of the nearly five-acre property and Superior announced initial plans for a 100-room hotel with space for meeting rooms, an indoor pool, waterslide and fitness centre. Superior has been in business for more than 20 years and involved to some degree in more than 150 hotels.

Since then, however, a hotel in Thornhill has opened as well as one west of Canadian Tire on Hwy16. A third is under construction adjacent to city hall.

City officials said in 2013 that the deal with Superior fit its vision for the former Co-op property as a cornerstone of downtown revitalization.

It’s a vision born in 2005 when the city borrowed $1 million from its reserves to purchase the property from a private developer who had previously bought the property after the Co-op shopping centre there closed in the late 1990s.

It was a move controversial at the time, and was repaid from tax monies at $100,000 a year.

After the city bought the shopping complex, various proposals were considered and rejected to renovate the structure before the city decided to demolish it in the hopes that a cleared piece of property would better entice a development of some kind.

The pending Superior sale doesn’t include a one-acre section on the eastern end of the property, bounded by Kalum and directly across from the Best Western.

That was the location of the Co-op gasbar and would need extensive remediation prior to any sale or future city development there.

It also doesn’t include a small portion on the western end at Emerson. That part was sold to a local group who had plans for a brewpub and entertainment business.

In the meantime the city has been spending money from its land acquisition reserve on another substantial brownfield site it owns, the former log yard of a sawmilling company located on the 5000 block of Keith Ave. in the light industrial area.

It is also seeking a clean environmental bill of health there, for an eventual sale to a developer.

The current work underway to complete the final Co-op site work, with its expected cost of just under $136,000, is being done by Golder and Associates and covers additional sitework of bore holes to monitor groundwater and vapour.

The cost also covers paperwork needed to apply for grants, this time from a program originating with the federal government. The papers involve updating environmental assessments, completing what’s called a detailed site investigation of the property and submitting the results to the provincial environment ministry.