Peel Plaza – future location for a major residential project?

Today’s Telegraph-Journal had a great article about an idea from Deputy Mayor Stephen Chase.  If we can’t afford to build a police station located in Peel Plaza, then we should be looking at a major residential project!

I am in total agreement with the idea.  We, the citizens, stand to gain much more through residential development in the uptown core.

I also don’t think that the police station needs to be located in Peel Plaza.  There are many other great locations nearby (Crown Street is one good example).  It seems like such a waste of prime real-estate.

Below is the full article:

Sure, waterfront is prime, but the two blocks on the crest of a hill in the city centre have just become the most hotly discussed piece of real estate in Saint John.

Deputy Mayor Stephen Chase says if council decides it can’t afford the police headquarters, Peel Plaze would be an premier location for a high-end residential development. ‘Residential space would be at the top of my list.’

Located between the city’s tallest edifice – the Aliant building – and one of its most historic – the Carnegie building housing the Saint John Arts Centre – the site has become a flash point among common council members.

Both the current council and the previous one have worked to create a new police headquarters on the property, with a parking garage nearby, to complement a new courthouse complex the province plans to build right next door on the site of the former YMCA-YWCA.

The unified front started to crumble last week, when both Councillor Bill Farren and Deputy Mayor Stephen Chase said it might be worth putting the $28-million police station on hold because it could drive taxes up.

“In the final analysis, council might say, ‘It’s a great project, but we can’t afford it because of the price tag,’ ” Chase repeated on Tuesday. “But we could say, ‘Look, here’s another option we’d like developers to put forward. If you didn’t want to build a police station, what would you do with this piece of prime development land in the city?”

Mayor Ivan Court and some other council members have denounced his idea, saying it’s too late to have second thoughts when so much money, time and effort have already been spent. Based on the debate Monday night, it appears a small council majority still favours building the station on the site.

Besides acquiring surface parking lots and several other properties in the area, the city has already razed four buildings, prepared design plans for the headquarters and surrounding area, hired a consultant and outside law firm to help with the development process and reassigned the city’s chief building inspector and a support staffer to work full-time on the Peel Plaza endeavour.

Common council also authorized giving a daycare a valuable heritage building for $1 after the city bought its previous property for $550,000 just around the corner.

Despite these costs, Chase argued it wouldn’t be a waste of taxpayers’ money to replace the police station with another development.

“Residential space would be at the top of my list. We need people downtown, quite simply. This would be premier space for a housing project. It’s a beautiful location and it could be a marvelous development.”

Like Farren, the deputy mayor said there are too many expensive capital borrowing projects on the go for the city to do everything without causing a tax increase.

Besides that, the city is waiting for an official actuarial report on its mushrooming pension plan deficit.

In January, the city’s pension experts pegged it at $146 million. As the plan’s sponsor, the city would by law have to make minimum payments to erase the shortfall over a 15-year period. In the past, the province has let the deficit slide for a few years, but Chase believes the latest council can postpone it this time is 2011. If the fund’s investments don’t have a big turnaround, about $9.7 million could be owed each successive year.

Chase said converting Peel Plaza to high-end housing makes sense because it’s already been rezoned for a high-rise of up to 22 stories. He believes a four- or five-storey condo complex with commercial space at the bottom might be the ticket because it would generate more property taxes.

The police headquarters would then be relocated to a less expensive location, preferably near the throughway.

“It’s hard to argue that the station wouldn’t be a nice project. There’s been some very good thought put into developing the space. But having said that, move out the police station and build a residential complex, and you actually achieve a greater objective and you can develop that space just as nicely. You can enhance the arts centre, do your green space but instead of a building that’s an expenditure on a year-to-year basis, you’d actually have something that gives money back.”

What do you think?