Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Forks hotel/water park mulled
Could be on land that led to Katz scandal
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.
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition November 3, 2009 B1
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