Here is the Record article below.
Cleanup It has cost more than $9 million to cleanup an old industrial site at the end of Adam Street in Kitchener. The 16 acre site will see more than $250 million invested to build townhouses and apartment-condo buildings.
Record staff
KITCHENER — The deep pockets and commitment needed to clean up contaminated-industrial sites for redevelopment were on full display in recent months where thousands of big trucks were loaded with dirty soil and fill at the end of Adam Street in the Breithaupt Park neighbourhood.
Queensgate Developments (Kitchener Inc.) spent more than $9 million to clean up the site where the Panill Veneer furniture factory was once located, and before that, the Breithaupt Leather Co. had a tannery. It is the most expensive brownfield cleanup in the city’s history.
“The costs were several multiples more than was originally guesstimated by our environmental consultants,” Sam DeCaria, the vice-president of Queensgate Developments (Kitchener Inc.), says in a telephone interview from Toronto.
It’s exactly this scenario that scares developers away from these sites.
“Once you get on a site that size you have to chase the contamination until it is out and gone, a big dig-and-dump kind of process,” DeCaria says.
The empty lot was a target for vandals and the site of a spectacular fire about six years ago that destroyed the remains of the veneer plant. Surrounding property owners had to look at the blight that depressed the value of their houses. The land was producing little or no property taxes.
The 6.4 hectares (16 acres) sat empty for years until Queensgate Developments took it on last year. They have only recently finished the cleanup and city councillors have approved the plans for building about 958 residential units on the land.
Queensgate will spend about $250 million to build 667 apartment-condos in several buildings and 230 townhomes. The townhomes will be on Louisa Street and Blucher Street. In between will be the apartment-condos. A large pedestrian walkway and park will run into the centre of the site from Louisa Street.
Long before they can even start construction on the first buildings, Queensgate spent millions to have 2,200 tractor trailers loaded with contaminated soils and hauled to special dumpsites in Sarnia and Chatham. They had to pay about $50-a-cubic metre to get rid of the contaminated soil. In all, the big trucks hauled away 90,000-cubic-metres of dirty fill.
“The dumping portion of this is a big number,” Bruno Suppa, of Queensgate, says in a telephone interview from Toronto.
This cleanup never would have happened without a special program that sees the Region of Waterloo and the City of Kitchener help developers pay the cleanup costs. When the land is fully developed and worth much more, the property taxes will be far higher.
Under the program the developers will continue paying property taxes at the old, lower rate until the cleanup is paid for, or for 10 years, whichever comes first.
The program was started in Kitchener in 2006 and later picked up by the Region of Waterloo. The province, which is responsible for about 40 per cent of property taxes, which are earmarked for school boards, does not take part in the program.
If the province took part, and agreed to reduced-education taxes until the cleanup is paid for, it would help with the redevelopment of old industrial sites that are contaminated. In short, the developers would recover the cleanup costs sooner.
“You have all those dollars out there that are not returned for some time down the road,” DeCaria says.
“Although the program is well-intentioned and has made a difference, I think that would probably be the single most important amendment,” DeCaria says of speeding up the pay back.
It could take up to seven or eight years to complete the redevelopment. That will be shortened to as little as four years if the developer can interest investors in buying units to be rented out. Work starts on model suites this fall and on the first buildings next spring.
“In Kitchener the vacancy rate is below two per cent so there is a demand for good quality, new units,” DeCaria says.
Queensgate took on the large brownfield site when there is nothing but bad news from the region’s largest employer — RIM. The BlackBerry maker says 5,000 people will be laid off during the next six months or so, the launch of BlackBerry 10 is delayed until next year and the stock price has dropped 90 per cent from its peak.
“In the past four months the Kitchener-Waterloo areas has produced 14,000 new jobs,” Suppa says. “You are the guys that have the economy of the future. That’s what we see, that’s what our group saw right away.”
Added DeCaria: “It is one of the few cities in Canada, and possibly all of North America that has reinvented itself from its very successful industrial background to a knowledge-based economy.”
Queensgate Developments (Kitchener Inc.) spent more than $9 million to clean up the site where the Panill Veneer furniture factory was once located, and before that, the Breithaupt Leather Co. had a tannery. It is the most expensive brownfield cleanup in the city’s history.
“The costs were several multiples more than was originally guesstimated by our environmental consultants,” Sam DeCaria, the vice-president of Queensgate Developments (Kitchener Inc.), says in a telephone interview from Toronto.
It’s exactly this scenario that scares developers away from these sites.
“Once you get on a site that size you have to chase the contamination until it is out and gone, a big dig-and-dump kind of process,” DeCaria says.
The empty lot was a target for vandals and the site of a spectacular fire about six years ago that destroyed the remains of the veneer plant. Surrounding property owners had to look at the blight that depressed the value of their houses. The land was producing little or no property taxes.
The 6.4 hectares (16 acres) sat empty for years until Queensgate Developments took it on last year. They have only recently finished the cleanup and city councillors have approved the plans for building about 958 residential units on the land.
Queensgate will spend about $250 million to build 667 apartment-condos in several buildings and 230 townhomes. The townhomes will be on Louisa Street and Blucher Street. In between will be the apartment-condos. A large pedestrian walkway and park will run into the centre of the site from Louisa Street.
Long before they can even start construction on the first buildings, Queensgate spent millions to have 2,200 tractor trailers loaded with contaminated soils and hauled to special dumpsites in Sarnia and Chatham. They had to pay about $50-a-cubic metre to get rid of the contaminated soil. In all, the big trucks hauled away 90,000-cubic-metres of dirty fill.
“The dumping portion of this is a big number,” Bruno Suppa, of Queensgate, says in a telephone interview from Toronto.
This cleanup never would have happened without a special program that sees the Region of Waterloo and the City of Kitchener help developers pay the cleanup costs. When the land is fully developed and worth much more, the property taxes will be far higher.
Under the program the developers will continue paying property taxes at the old, lower rate until the cleanup is paid for, or for 10 years, whichever comes first.
The program was started in Kitchener in 2006 and later picked up by the Region of Waterloo. The province, which is responsible for about 40 per cent of property taxes, which are earmarked for school boards, does not take part in the program.
If the province took part, and agreed to reduced-education taxes until the cleanup is paid for, it would help with the redevelopment of old industrial sites that are contaminated. In short, the developers would recover the cleanup costs sooner.
“You have all those dollars out there that are not returned for some time down the road,” DeCaria says.
“Although the program is well-intentioned and has made a difference, I think that would probably be the single most important amendment,” DeCaria says of speeding up the pay back.
It could take up to seven or eight years to complete the redevelopment. That will be shortened to as little as four years if the developer can interest investors in buying units to be rented out. Work starts on model suites this fall and on the first buildings next spring.
“In Kitchener the vacancy rate is below two per cent so there is a demand for good quality, new units,” DeCaria says.
Queensgate took on the large brownfield site when there is nothing but bad news from the region’s largest employer — RIM. The BlackBerry maker says 5,000 people will be laid off during the next six months or so, the launch of BlackBerry 10 is delayed until next year and the stock price has dropped 90 per cent from its peak.
“In the past four months the Kitchener-Waterloo areas has produced 14,000 new jobs,” Suppa says. “You are the guys that have the economy of the future. That’s what we see, that’s what our group saw right away.”
Added DeCaria: “It is one of the few cities in Canada, and possibly all of North America that has reinvented itself from its very successful industrial background to a knowledge-based economy.”
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