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Forks hotel/water park mulled

Could be on land that led to Katz scandal

By: Bartley Kives

3/11/2009 1:00 AM | Comments: 38

Winnipeg is mulling over a proposal to build a hotel and water park on the downtown parking lot at the centre of last year's scandal involving a company that used to be run by Mayor Sam Katz.

For the past two years, the city has been trying to find a private developer to build a water park with the help of a $7-million grant. The city initially awarded the cash to the Canad Inns hotel chain, but pulled the deal off the table in April after no progress was made on a $43.6-million aquatic facility at Polo Park.

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In June, the city launched a new search in hopes of finding a water-park proponent. One formal proposal has emerged, which calls for a water park and hotel to rise on city-owned land at the corner of Waterfront Drive and Water Avenue, councillors were told at a closed-door seminar on Monday.

The land in question is infamous at city hall for sparking the scandal known as the Riverside Park Management affair. From 2005 to 2008, the city and Riverside Park -- a non-profit organization that sublets city land to the Katz-owned Winnipeg Goldeyes -- argued over the price of a lease for the 2.4-hectare parcel of land, which the baseball club used as a parking lot.

In September 2008, city council was divided over a plan to renegotiate the terms of the lease and allow Riverside Park Management to forgo a $223,000 bill for unpaid rent. The non-profit organization, which was run by Katz until April 2008, claimed it was given an unfair deal by Winnipeg real estate managers.

A Free Press investigation revealed an interlocking relationship between the for-profit Winnipeg Goldeyes and non-profit Riverside Park and showed how that arrangement could have been used to lower the short-term tax burden on the baseball club.

In the end, city council voted to approve the renegotiated parking lot lease. But city property managers refused to extend the deal and wound up assuming control of the parking lot in October 2008.

Today, the land continues to be used as a city parking lot, just south of Canwest Park and west of the future Canadian Museum for Human Rights.

The original museum plan called for a new hotel to rise on a vacant plot of land in the vicinity of The Forks. On Monday, councillors refused to comment about the prospects for a new hotel and water park on the west side of Waterfront Drive. For the second time in two working days, they were asked to sign a confidentiality agreement before they attended the closed-door seminar with city officials.

The $7-million water-park grant is one of the final remnants of a $43-million kitty created after Katz cancelled a bus rapid transit plan in 2004, then persuaded Ottawa to redirect some of the money toward recreational facilities.

In 2006, $9 million was devoted to pool improvements at Kildonan Park, but that project was cancelled after city officials determined the upgrades could not be completed within that budget.

In 2008, the city launched a search for a private partner to build a water park and eventually chose Canad Inns over a rival proposal from Creswin, a real estate company run by David Asper.

The grant was withdrawn after Katz grew impatient with Canad Inns' slow progress. He has since vowed to put a delinquency penalty of at least $100,000 into the next deal to build a water park.

bartley.kives@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition November 3, 2009 B1

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38 Commentscomment icon

@MYEyelsOnYou...Where would the money come from...Those illegal Photo Radar tickets that the courts told him to refund everybodies money as a result of the money being illegally collected...and By-Laws fee increases...such as expecting to charge $250.00 for either a Demolition or Building or Moving permit for a shed that is 108 sq ft or larger...Fact...Checking it out for yourselves...This mayor is out of control and has to go and fast...GGF

Chilla- You hit the nail right on the head there!! Its the local clientele that prevents the downtown from revitalizing. You don't even have to wait until after dark. Go to Portage PLace mall during the day and it is over run with punks and drug dealers and the like. I thought that place was built to help revitalize downtown? Its how many countless years later and we are still talking about revitalizing downtown!!

Not only are we worried about getting back to our cars safely, we are worried if our cars will be there to get to safety!

The Forks has turned into a commercial destination more and more all the time. Why jam another commercial business at the scale that these things will be, down there?

COntrary to popular belief, the people who come visit Wpg don't all want to go to The Forks!

This city is so backwards, everywhere else they are expanding their cities, but we keep trying to jam more and more in the little crowded, traffic-jammed space we have.

Don't even get me started on the Museum that is being built down there! Just what I always wanted to go to, a place to see where people who have had their human rights violated!! YAAAAWWWNNN, who cares?? Are they going to showcase my plight of being passed over for jobs becasue I didn't fit the visible minority, disabled, woman, affirmative action job indication? Talk about Human rights violation. Everybody but caucasion males get to check a box!!

Wow...I'm the last guy for wanting another Civic Election so soon but how I wish it was tommorow already...What a train reck of a Mayor we have here in Wpg...A Mayor with no vision for Wpg other than what suits his own best interests and the people he sleeps with...Hey buy the way Sammy...Next time I get a Parking Lot Ticket can I refuse to pay for some time and then go the Wpg Parking Authority and renogotiate the terms of the ticket because I will always think I had a bad deal and follow the example you took in 2008...The difference is of course you will have robbed the common taxpayer of thousands and well me...Maybe a buck or two will do...and that is just so I can afford a cold one in celebration of your defeat in the next election...Can't wait...GGF

@ Stuart Kaye The Forks already is a glorified shopping centre.Full of low end fast food and few actual food market stalls that can survive.
.Plus..thie waterpark is on the side behind Portage and Main near the ballpark, not he childrens museum, skatepark etc..... We actually seem to get more green space when some building gets developed there.
@ JOE...That pub on Princess??I know of a busy pub on KING st...
I agree that we could use a proper new convention centre but I think the expansion plan across the street is in the works already.

Its a good idea.

But it would be better closer to the downtown though.

Between MTS Centre, and the Convention Centre, and the existing hotels.

Or build it on the pad of Portage Place, next to the Y. A perfect fit.

It would have a greater impact.

But these things would have to be properly thought out.

Give people a good reason to stay after work and they will. Ever try to get in on that pub on Princess after work?

The same for great waterparks!





The Forks will ultimately become little more than a glorified shopping centre–much of the original vision will be destroyed.

I can't believe I'm saying this but I actually like the previous poster's idea of converting the Convention Center into a water park !!!! Get out the hose!! Build a new, proper convention/hotel complex on a couple of the many, derelict blocks (parking lots) downtown. No, sorry, don't know where the $$$ to do it is... ask Sam, he seem,s to have a few funds squirrelled away!!! :-)

chilla.....Typical pessimistic Krap.
Well, the more u think like that and spread the negative, the less we can achive in greatness and a vibrant Downtown becoming reality.Thanks for nothing good to offer.I see the glass as half full.
Spread th word.

It doesn't matter what you put downtown - it won't be revitalized - why because after 6pm at night everyone goes home and the local clientele come back out - clean up the streets and downtown will blossom again.
it is hard to justify staying downtown after an event when you are worried about getting back to your car.

For all those people who complain about parking....this is such a simple issue to resolve....TAKE THE BUS!

Downtown Winnipeg is already littered with grade level parking lots - why create more.

All those lazy..lackadaisical Winnipegger's could easily get by with a walk of a block or two. Quit the fuss about parking, build the city tall and brave, and let Winnipeg shine. Parkades ro grade level parking are evil sites in any city.

And, oh yes, I have traveled the globe far and wide, and when taxi's weren't available - Public Transit worked just fine.

On the heated side - taking a bus will not kill you. It's a safe and easy means of transportation and it only costs a few measly cents. Parking lots can be expensive and they are not needed....ONLY PUBLIC TRANSIT SHOULD BE ALLOWED DOWNTOWN. There, that's the easy resolve - plain, simple, safe and quick.

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