Planning committee backs $100M in new projects
A string of ambitious projects worth more than $100 million, including 400 new housing units and the rejuvenation of a vacant riverfront hotel, were enthusiastically endorsed Monday by the city’s planning committee. Members of the committee voted unanimously to recommend four initiatives, including three applications to the downtown Community Improvement Plan that provides incentives to spur residential development and bring more people into the downtown core.
“We can’t help but be incredibly ecstatic about development in our core,” committee member and Ward 4 Coun. Chris Holt said Monday night.
In addition, the committee endorsed a $50-million, 261-unit condo project in three, six-storey buildings on a long-vacant commercial property at Walker Road and Ducharme Street.
All these initiatives still need final approval from city council. The downtown projects include: A $32.9-million, 120-unit residential building, 16 storeys high, with commercial space on the ground floor and underground parking, to be built on a lot at the northwest corner of Victoria Avenue and Park Street.
It will be the largest residential development in the downtown in decades. Redeveloping a vacant twostorey
■ Pelissier Street bar (Don Cherry’s) into a hip, five-storey industrial-styled building with commercial on the main floor and 24 residential units above. The $13.6-million rejuvenation
■ of the former Radisson Hotel — gutted and vacant for the last few years — into a high-end hotel, probably a Doubletree, with a new restaurant fronting Riverside Drive.
All the proponents of these projects said Monday that the Community Improvement Plan, passed last fall by council, is critical to moving forward with their plans. It provides grants for creating new residential ($2,500 per unit up to $50,000) or for turning upper floors of existing commercial buildings into apartments ($5,000 per unit to $50,000). But the biggest incentive is the rebate for the difference between current taxes on a property and the taxes paid once it’s developed, for up to 10 years.
For the 16-storey Glenkash Luxury Suites, the difference between the current tax on the parking lot ($6,027) and the new building ($191,434) amounts to $185,407 per year. The tax savings add up to $1.85 million. That project is receiving about $2.2 million in incentives, and it’s also benefiting from an earlier decision by council to waive development fees in the downtown. Total savings are closer to $4 million, said Shelley Gould, who works on behalf of businessman Parkash Ramchandani of SIND Investments Ltd.
She said the “upscale luxury” project has been more than two years in the making. Construction could start this fall and be finished in 24 months.
“I think we all just believed in it,” said Gould. “Mr. Ramchandani believes in the downtown core and he believes if we build it, people will come.”
To see the project coming to fruition is “very exciting ” and amazing, said Downtown Windsor Business Improvement Association chairman Larry Horwitz. “This is going to be a real class structure in the downtown core, one of the first in 20 or 30 years and an investment of tens of millions of dollars. It’s a home run.” Coun. Bill Marra, who chairs the committee, said millions of dollars in tax rebates were endorsed Monday night. “And I’m very confident of this: None of this would have happened if we didn’t have this package (of incentives) possible.” The evening was not without dissent, however. A resident living behind the Walker/Ducharme big box site shouted, “Shame on you,” after the planning committee unanimously endorsed developer Abdul Karim Habib’s rezoning application to allow his condo project.
“How many of you live with a sixstorey building in your backyard?” Carmen Serbanescu shouted in an angry outburst as she exited council chambers. She later told reporters: “They just don’t care. It’s all about money.”
But Serbanescu was the lone opponent of the project for the six-acre property at Walker and Ducharme.
There were many more residents upset about a previous plan last year that involved 90 condo units, commercial on the ground floor, and 37 two-storey townhouses at the back of the property. The residents didn’t like that the townhouses were close to the single-family homes on Rockport Street.
Habib, who developed that Walker Gate Estates subdivision, withdrew that earlier plan and has come back with this new concept which has no townhouses, and the condo buildings located in a horseshoe shape at the front of the property, close to Walker Road with parking in the back. “Parking has been hidden (there is also underground parking ), so as you’re driving down Walker Road you’re not going to see a sea of parking. You’re going to see a beautiful building,” said the developer’s planner Jackie Lassaline. “There’s been a huge change here from the original plan,” Ward 9 Coun. Hilary Payne said. “In fact, it’s a very good compromise.” Developers have tried for years to build big-box retail on the site, with no interest from prospective tenants. This new concept will probably end up providing more than $1 million annually in property taxes, said Ward 5 Coun. Ed Sleiman.
The incentives for the three downtown projects — if approved by council — add up to $5.9 million, to leverage $52.1 million in investment.
The incentives are “critical to make this kind of investment,” said Tyler McDiarmid, whose firm Ironwood Management Corp. is working for London-based developer Shmuel Farhi to help rejuvenate the former Radisson.
“It will be quite an incredible transformation,” he pledged, citing the work recently done on Fahri’s former Travelodge, now a Holiday Inn Express. This new hotel will be one of the finest in the city, he said.
This going to be a real class structure in the downtown core, one of the first in 20 or 30 years and an investment of tens of millions.