It seems that the city is now moving forward with this. The school is being demolished and the land is going to be portioned into 4 seperate segments and sold off to interested parties.
Here are some crucial snippets from an article "Redevelopment gathers steam" that was in the Calgary Herald written by Richard White published on January 13th, accessed from
http://www.calgaryherald.com/business/Redevelopment+gathers+steam/5988080/story.html
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"One of the biggest urban development events of 2012 could be the city’s Westbrook Station land sale on the Ernest Manning High School site.
The project is just one part of the larger Westbrook Village redevelopment — a 21-hectare site that encompasses the area from Bow Trail on the north to 17th Avenue S.W. on the south; and from 33rd Street S.W. on the east and 37th Street S.W. on the west — and includes Westbrook Mall.
I recently had an interesting chat with Robert Moskovitz, manager of land servicing for the City of Calgary.
He will be overseeing the land servicing and development of four parcels of city-owned land next to the underground Westbrook LRT Station on the new west LRT leg.
<snip>
Moskovitz indicated that, as per the Area Redevelopment Plan, the vision for this site is for a mixed-use development similar in scale to the Intergulf development on the north side of Bow Trail and 37th Street.
It could also look like Balboa’s Keynote project in the Beltline, which has two condo towers and one office tower, along with retail, restaurants and cafes at the base.
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The city will be looking for projects that are pedestrian-friendly, mixed-use and mixed income — developers are required to provide two per cent of all residential units as affordable housing.
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Ideally, Moskovitz says the city would like to have one developer buy all four parcels, but officials will be looking for the best proposals for each site.
These will be evaluated based on the following criteria:
-- Consistency with land use, density and architectural character.
<snip>
-- Approach to affordable housing.
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-- Price offered for the land.
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I tried to coax Moskovitz into divulging how much money the city hoped to raise from this sale — even a ballpark figure — but his lips were tightly sealed.
When I chatted with developers and real estate professionals about what they thought the land might be worth, they, too, were reluctant to give a ballpark price — too many variables, they said.
<snip>
Other issues include geotechnical restrictions due to an LRT tunnel, potential unrealistic density and timing demands based on current market conditions, green design demands and mandatory affordable housing requirements.
Some pointed to The Bridges project, another city-lead redevelopment project where a recent land offering that specifically requested a mix of affordable and market housing attracted few interested developers.
<snip>
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I have long hoped they would push this forward but numerous things the city have done on moving forward leave me less then thrilled and IMO they are going to end up with a result FAR less then what it could be.
First off, the 2% affordable housing requirement is (as the article mentions) going to limit the offers the city receives for the land and also limit the amount of money that a developer is going to spend on the project. This vision
http://realestate.cocnmp.com/documents/westbrook/pdf/westbrook_station_tod.pdf
http://www.calgary.ca/PDA/LUPP/Documents/Publications/westbrook-village-arp.pdf
is not going to happen when you start bringing in mandatory affordable housing restrictions on land that the city still wants to sell at a premium price. Some developer probably WOULD build that vision, but they are going to need to sell the square footage at fair market price for the Calgary market that such a development would demand. Anything that is going to cut into their bottom line is going to cut into the amount of money that they spend on both the land, and the project, that is simple economics 101 and the city of Calgary will end up with a Westbrook that is less then what it could be.
If the City of Calgary really wants to have affordable housing that is fine, but you do not try to "mix" affordable housing into a high end retail and high end residential project. You build Westbrook as a high end residential and retail center as the visions of the city clearly indicate they want, and then you get the builder to build a "different" building on a "different" piece of land that the city owns that is 100% affordable housing and is custom built for that purpose. You do not try to somehow put affordable housing into development that are clearly otherwise aimed at a high end market.
Get rid of the 2% requirement, the land then becomes more valuable, the city sells it for more money, the developer builds a higher end retail and residential place that stands out more and is more impressive, the units sell for more money, the city gets more in tax revenue from the more valuable housing, and then you can build a 100% affordable housing project with that excess tax revenue and the extra money the land sold for on another piece of city land.
On top of that the city mentions that they are hoping for a single developer so that they can keep a consistency in the design, yet they broke up the land into 4 seperate packages. Not to mention that 20 Vic Management seems to own Westbrook Mall and both the building to the North with the Spa Lady AND the strip mall/professional building to the south. In effect one group already "owns" most of the land needed for the redevelopment, a parcel of land far bigger then the entire school land parcel. And 20 Vic, they did The Core redevelopment which most would say was a pretty impressive job and seems to have a similar theme to the Westbrook Redevelopment vision the city has put forth of modern themed buildings that blend in green spaces and trees.
If they sell the land to anyone else, even the whole school parcel, that developer is STILL not going to own the bulk of Westbrook and the consistency issue will still not be dealt with.
If they can get 20 Vic to buy the land and develop the entire area of Westbrook from 17th avenue to Bow trail and 33rd to 37th avenue, without the mandatory affordable housing in the Westbrook Station then they actually have a chance of getting that vision in those PDF's that they are looking for. When making the deal simply have a caveat that the developer of the Westbrook Station project must also build "at cost" a 100% affordable housing project on a different piece of land for the City of Calgary.
The City of Calgary has a GREAT vision in the above PDF plans, but they are handcuffing the developers and moving forward in a way such that the vision will never be realized. They need to actually work with the developers to get what they envisioned built, not handcuff them and start putting restrictions on them and break the school property into 4 seperate parcels and make the likelyhood of multiple developers WAY more likely. Their words and their actions on this are going in completely opposite directions.
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