At the corner of Fifth Ave and George Street sits a vacant lot. It shouldn't be vacant. According to a September 2011 Citizen interview with Premier Christy Clark, It should be the construction site of the 10-story Wood Innovation Design Centre and if not a 10-storey building then at least the tallest wood building in the world. That claim to fame was made by the ever-modest provincial minister and local MLA Pat Bell.
Well that was then and this is now, the lot is still vacant and following the never-ending saga of WIDC is like reading War and Peace albeit with less heroes.
To unravel WIDC- if that's possible - here's a quick overview of the timeline. In early 2009 Dan McLaren of Commonwealth Campus Ltd. bought the Morrison's Men's Wear building at Third and George St. With this acquisition Commonwealth also enlisted the real-estate consultants Colliers to advise the company on downtown development. Colliers said Commonwealth needed more than one lot for proper development and the Prince George Hotel was a detriment to attracting downtown retail trade.
On Aug. 25, 2009 in the Speech from the Throne, the B.C. government announced the creation of a Wood Innovation and Design Centre. WIDC went on to become somewhat of a Throne Speech Queen appearing two more times as a Liberal promise to Prince George.
Following the first Throne Speech the government got into gear pretty quickly. A developer was needed and Commonwealth was brought on the scene. The beginning scenario was straight forward. Provincial government policy is to partner with city councils on property development. The city buys the land and the province puts up the building. As a provincial minister in 1990 I made the same arrangement with Prince George City Council when the Provincial Court House was built at Third Ave. and George St.
In this case both the city and the province saw Commonwealth as the developer since the company was already moving forward with project design, planning and engineering on the redevelopment of George St.
Following a preliminary meeting with Ministers Pat Bell and Shirley Bond, plus Bruce Sutherland of the Northern Development Initiative Trust, the NDIT arrived at an agreement with Commonwealth. On Sept. 16, 2009 the NDIT issued a due diligence report approving a loan to Commonwealth to facilitate the development of WIDC. This report said $8.8 million would be advanced to Commonwealth as a loan. Commonwealth would purchase the Prince George Hotel - this purchase had to go through Commonwealth due to restrictive policies in the Community Charter - and Commonwealth would assign the rights of conveyance to NDIT. Complicated, but that's the way it had to be handled. The critical point here is that Commonwealth was asked by the province to participate. For all of the critics clucking over the fees paid to Commonwealth as the developer and share purchaser of the PG Hotel, the NDIT due diligence report says the province and city got a good deal. The written statement on fees paid to Commonwealth says, "This is substantially less than the normal development fee cost charge."
The due diligence document went on to say NDIT would then transfer the remediated land - that's the PG Hotel site after demolition - to the University of Northern British Columbia for $12,495,000. For Commonwealth a straight through process. As we know now, none of that happened. Indeed not much of anything has happened when we review the grand plans of 2009. Now, four years later we have a budget of $25 million for what was supposed to be the tallest wooden building in the world. The bid documents will be opened next month, three years after the purchase and closure of the P.G. Hotel. The construction start date is some time in March with a completion date some time in 2014.
Speaking to ministry staff, I find there are no agreements with the private forest-industry sector to lease or in anyway participate in WIDC, no business plan as to what WIDC will do and to top it all off Commonwealth, which was brought into the development agreement by the government, has been thrown under the bus.
We also have an election in May which carries the risk of electing a government strongly disposed to looking after the Lower Mainland only.
The WIDC file is a classic case of government botching a good idea.
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Hallelujah.
I've had the good fortune to sing in about 15 performances of The Messiah. Without question the best Messiah I've ever been part of was last Saturday with PGSO conductor Kevin Zakreski. Zakreski was born and raised in Prince George. He completed under- graduate and graduate studies at UBC and recently completed a Doctorate in Choral Conducting at Yale.
Zakreski brought absolute magic to The Messiah. Conducting a large community choir, four soloists and an orchestra takes a ton of talent and Kevin Zakreski made it look easy. The best always do. So here's a festive pitch to the arts community, with Kevin as music director of the PGSO, this would a good time to revisit a downtown performing arts centre.
Let me close by wishing you all a Merry Christmas and my very best for the new year.
