Apartments may replace Dwayne’s Home

The owner of the transitional housing facility Dwayne’s Home is proposing to redevelop the site into a six-storey apartment building.

Josh St. Cyr, president at Procura Real Estate Services, posted online the company’s preliminary plans to turn the downtown former hotel and hostel into an apartment building with more than 200 units and underground parking.

“Procura continues to promote quality developments in the City of Edmonton,” St. Cyr said in his post. “Delnor Construction has been engaged for pre-construction services, DIALOG for architectural services and landscape design. Look forward to pushing this one forward and improving access to ‘market affordability.’ ”

Procura did not make anyone available to Postmedia for an interview.

Dwayne’s Home opened in 2013 with the goal to offer the city’s most vulnerable a place to stay. At the time, room and board at the facility ranged between $550 and $950 a month, depending on whether the renter was eligible for a subsidy.

The future of Dwayne’s Home came into question last summer when a for-sale sign appeared on the outside fence.

In November, Homeward Trust took over operations of Dwayne’s Home with the goal of transitioning the tenants out of the facility.

The plan is to have this completed over a six-month period. The home has been involved in fires and police investigations over the years.

Coun. Scott Mckeen said the closure of the home would be a positive change for the area.

“While I respect the employees who toiled at Dwayne’s Home, the owner did not support the facility sufficiently to allow it to operate as a good employer, landlord or neighbour. I can’t see how I would not be supportive of a residential apartment building on the site, so long as it follows good design and planning principles. So it’s a bit early to say I’d vote one way or another.”

The city is currently trying to find solutions to its homeless problem, such as developing more bridge homes to help transition people to permanent lodging.

The city has reduced homelessness by 43 per cent since 2009 with 9,700 Edmontonians housed.

Chronic homelessness has also gone down by 15 per cent, bringing the number of homeless Edmontonians to 1,729 as of October.