Site of failed SkyCity condos goes on the market

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This article was published 02/10/2020 (1803 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A downtown lot once slated as the site of the SkyCity condo tower has been put back on the market, with the skyscraping building never getting off the ground in the seven troubled years since the development was proposed.

The 1.1-acre Graham Street lot where the 45-storey condo was scheduled to be built by last year is currently a surface parking lot, and has been listed for sale by Cushman & Wakefield | Stevenson, offered to the market unpriced.

Although the $200-million condo project was launched with optimism in 2013 — with half of its units selling after coming to market in 2015 — as time went on, it sputtered.

In 2018, Fortress Real Developments Inc., the Toronto developer behind SkyCity, was raided by the RCMP in a syndicated mortgage fraud investigation. Later that year, disgruntled condo buyers filed a class-action lawsuit against the developer in the Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench; Fortress paid refunds to buyers who’d placed 10 per cent deposits, and the sky-high project was all but grounded.

The Graham lot remained a parking lot, and all that indicated the project’s existence was a billboard promising, “Life, elevated.”

After the RCMP raid, FAAN Mortgage administrators Inc., was appointed as trustee over the property. In a memo sent to lenders in September, FAAN confirmed that the lot would be listed for sale.

“The Trustee has been in discussions with the listing agent who has advised that the property will be marketed to over 1,000 private, public and institutional investors as well as the local real estate community in Winnipeg,” the memo read.

In its brochure marketing the property, Cushman & Wakefield touts the site as a rare development opportunity, with the opportunity to control 164 parking stalls, which can give the buyer the opportunity to collect revenues while “planning the next marquee high density development of up to 600,000 square-feet.”

The offering is being presented to the market on an unpriced basis, the listing says, and the deadline for offers is Thursday, Oct. 15 at 3 p.m.

ben.waldman@freepress.mb.ca