400 City Hall Square Project Review

The Report on the Income and Security Building for which the City paid $15,000 is not what I expected it to be. It was supposed to be a report telling us what we did right and what we did wrong. I found the report very general frankly with some exceptions. I hope the financial report on the building will be much more specific and detailed.

Some thoughts:

• The price of the building works out to about $175 per square foot. Is that a good price, or a "luxury" building price or somewhere in-between?
• The one million dollar cash-flow gives about 3.7% return, about 1/2 - 2/3 lower than a private developer would want before he started a project I am told.
• Are any taxes paid on this building? If "taxes" were paid (say $5 per square foot), there would be little cash-flow
• What is the impact on the private development market when the City competes especially if there is so much empty space downtown
• I really would have liked to see more information about why the St. Clair deal tanked if we are to learn something and I also heard that a Provincial Government group did not come over. I assume no lease was signed with them as well.

The Report read to me like a primer giving the author's view as to how a project should be run. Sure there were discussions about mistakes but very few of them. His best discussions were in the sections about Design Process and Property Management.

In thinking about it, it is geared towards what should be done if we are going to do another project like this again. Oh my goodness, does this mean that the City is in the land development business now too? Land development, running a border operation, setting up a CFL franchise with a new stadium--everything except running a city. Can you blame the Mayor and Council though...it is such dull work. It is much more fun being an entrepreneur with taxpayer money.