Cementing his mark on the city

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This article was published 01/09/2018 (2892 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The 40-foot-high factory structures on Kenaston Boulevard, formerly belonging to Inland Cement, have stood defiantly for several years as a reminder of the industrial activity that used to take place on the “edge of town.”

But as the city has grown, that south Kenaston region has become one of the busiest retail and suburban office hubs in the city, emphasizing the incongruity of having an old rust-belt relic located right in the middle of it.

For almost two decades the cement company, now called Lehigh Hanson, has not owned the property and the factory has been dormant. While it still operates a busy cement distribution business on the north end of the site, the rest of it has been empty for years.

But finally, the old factory is coming down.

The 80,000-square-foot kiln, used to heat the materials used in the manufacture of cement, has been fully demolished. One set of six silos will come down in the spring of 2019.

Michael Golden, son of former city councillor Al Golden, has been the owner of the 15-acre site since the turn of the century. His plans are to transform the property into the kind of productive commercial development that many say befits the location.

His company, Ingenuity Development Corp., has plans to build a massive multi-tenant commercial and industrial development that Golden said will include several hundred thousand square feet of space.

“We are careful, diligent planners,” Golden said. “We have held this piece of property for some time. This is a big project to be undertaking, no question. It is very exciting for the family and, I hope, for the city of Winnipeg.”

Golden’s property stretches from the Tuxedo Business Park to the south, Nature Park Way to the east, FortWhyte Alive’s property to the west and Lehigh Hanson’s tightly contained distribution operation that butts up almost to back of the IKEA store to the north.

It’s such an unwieldy project that several in the industry said the demolition costs alone might be enough to dissuade the faint of heart.

The demolition work is being done by Rakowski Recycling, who Golden said are “doing a terrific job.” He would not say how much it costs other than “it is a significant investment.”

One real estate professional in the city said, “It’s an eyesore that’s been there for a long time and it was never going to be productively used, but the cost to demolish it must be substantial. There must have been something that influenced the decision to knock it down.”

Golden would not share details, but he said he is in negotiations with a “very large” industrial company and a large commercial interest who might take up a substantial portion of the development.

In addition to the costs of taking down the structures, there are also concerns about the likelihood of environmental contamination on the site. Golden is aware of those potential issues, but does not believe they will become insurmountable to proceeding with development.

“We will obviously have to go through environmental testing,” he said. “We have been working closely with the province to ensure everything meets environmental requirements. As we proceed with development we are going to have to do ongoing monitoring to see what comes along.”

He said he has had good support from city officials, the mayor’s office and area councillor Marty Morantz.

The scale and scope of the project is of a size that would typically require some kind of larger development partner with the equity and capital resources — likely tens of millions of dollars, if not more — to fund such a project until it starts to generate revenue.

But Golden said there are no partners and that he is the sole owner of Ingenuity, and his intentions are that he will be able to proceed with the project on his own.

Prior to his career as a city councillor, which lasted from 1988 until 2000, Al Golden had owned a number of properties in the city, including the Transcona Country Club. On Michael Golden’s LinkedIn page it notes his successful redevelopment and management of a couple of multi-tenant commercial/industrial properties in the city, including the old Dominion Tanners building on Church Avenue.

“We have had a variety of holdings and we have been successful,” Golden said. “We focus on hands-on development and management of our properties,”

While he may be developing properties his father has acquired over the years, Michael Golden, who says he has degrees in real estate development, construction management, taxation and finance from the University of Denver, made it clear that he was in charge of the Inland Cement project.

He said after the silos come down in the spring, they will have to go back to excavate the foundations below grade and prepare the site for development, which he said he hopes to be ready by the fall of 2019.

“Our intention is to create an employment centre for the area,” he said. “We want to focus on improving the density and the economic base for our city.

“I believe the tenants who will be coming in will be some the city has never seen before.”

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca