Delays possible in sale of old bus barns

The City of Saskatoon is considering creating a municipal development corporation that could help sell the city’s former bus barn buildings — but that could delay the sale more than two years.

A report to be considered by a city council committee updates the state of the bus barns in Caswell Hill, which were vacated in January after the city opened its new civic operations centre.

Lesley Anderson, the city’s director of planning and development, said a municipal development corporation is one route the city can take, but that doesn’t mean the city will necessarily choose it.

“It’s an option, but it would take a while,” Anderson said in an interview.

“The sale can proceed at any time.”

Anderson stressed the storage of city equipment and the occupation of some offices by parking enforcement staff is a temporary solution.

In November, council awarded a contract of slightly more than $110,000 to begin remediation and to determine the environmental risks of the city-owned buildings.

No contamination risk was found at three buildings, while one showed higher than acceptable amounts of lead in the soil and another showed higher than acceptable amounts of oil.

Some monitoring work is scheduled to begin this month, but excavations are dependent on weather and soil conditions and could be pushed back to the spring. The report updating the city’s progress on the site will be considered by council’s planning, development and community services committee on Monday.

Anderson said the remediation work does not have any implications for the sale of the property. The sale will be handled by the city’s land development branch, Saskatoon Land, which is to report back next year on the options.

One of the options to be considered is a municipal development corporation.

A separate report headed to council’s finance committee meeting on Monday says a municipal development corporation would help manage city assets to achieve the wider goals of the municipality.

The suggestion to explore a municipal development corporation stems from an audit of Saskatoon Land operations designed to identify ways to help the land development branch function better. Creating such an entity would take up to 36 months.

Caswell Hill residents have expressed frustration at the pace of the proposed redevelopment of the former bus barns, which includes one building that is more than a century old.