City council shortlists proposals
Behind closed doors, city council has shortlisted proposals for redeveloping two unused core properties: the Grace Hospital and Windsor Arena/water World sites.
After inviting proposals for each of the projects earlier this year, councillors met in-camera Monday to discuss the merits of six proposals submitted for the vacant Grace site and three for the Windsor Arena/water World site.
They decided to narrow the Grace proposals from six to four and have administration meet with the four proponents to iron out some council questions, Mayor Drew Dilkens said Tuesday.
The same sort of thing happened with the Windsor Arena/waterworld site, where the potential projects were pared down to two, which both intend to convert the old Barn for a non-hockey sports use.
Windsor Express president Dartis Willis is planning an event Thursday to reveal the basketball team’s proposed plans for the arena site. The team currently plays its games in the city’s WFCU Centre.
Meanwhile, council chose the four most robust proposals for the Grace site, according to Dilkens. He said there was “general excitement” around the council table about what could happen to the site, which has sat vacant since the closure of the hospital in 2004. After a failed attempt by a private developer to convert it into a 230-bed long-term care home, the property was eventually demolished by the province and purchased by the city from the largest mortgage holder. A subsequent plan to put an urgent care centre there as part of the $2-billion megahospital plan fell apart.
One of the six proposals for the site comes from the site’s former owner, Hotel-dieu Grace Hospital, which hopes to work with partners to develop a $250-million project featuring health services and a mix of 650 condo and townhouse units, some of it geared to seniors, families and those with chronic health needs.
Dilkens said all the projects proposed with the site have housing as their main component. Some have student housing, while others have permanent housing. Some also have commercial uses while others include an urgent care clinic. “They all have a bit of a different twist to them,” said the mayor, while declining to reveal specific details.
“I feel really excited about the Grace situation, because it’s vacant land and all four proponents, they all see the potential and it’ll be easy to move forward because it’s vacant land and it’s serviced.”
Council had several issues it wants administration to discuss with the proponents, he said. These include: parking — whether it would be underground or surface lots; the price the city would get for the land; what kind of property taxes each project would generate for the city; and timing.
Dilkens explained that while one proposal involved 12 years of phased construction, another was looking at two to three years. “Council is interested in getting this stuff done much faster than 12 years, and so if there’s a phased proposal that was going to last 12 years, I think it would be very difficult for council to take that seriously.”
He said he hopes administration can meet with the proponents over the next 90 days to gather information and return for another in-camera meeting.
“That’s the goal here. You start with six, come down to four, then let’s see what happens, maybe you get down to two. And then if one makes sense of the two, we go with that one probably.”
He said the situation is very similar with the Windsor Arena/ Water World property, which has been largely unused for about seven years. An earlier plan to develop the property as the future home of Catholic Central High School fell through. Administration was tasked by council Monday with meeting with the two shortlisted proponents to discuss whether they could develop the project together. Dilkens said under both proposals, the exterior of the old 1924 arena — one of the oldest arenas of its type in North America — would be preserved.
Dilkens said the Windsor Arena/ Water World project will be much more complicated and will require the city to be involved in order to make it happen.