I've always been skeptical about collaborative public-private real estate initiatives. They always sound great at the beginning and rarely, if ever, result in a truly win-win positive outcomes. When one party wants to have a cake at the expense of another party, things are bound to get bad at some point, which is what happens most of the time, when the government is involved in them. We've seen so many examples here in Calgary of why it should not even be attempted. The only people winning here are the bureaucrats receiving fat pay-cheques and hired to manage these ventures without any good credentials based on their personal connections to the decision-makers.
The only right way for the forward-thinking municipality to re-develop a blighted area is by investing in its development via a wholly-owned development subsidiary (i.e. CMLC in East Village), that assumes all of the development risks and receives all of the development rewards through the full retail value of the developed land parcels sold to retail/commercial and residential builders through a fair market auction process. If a municipality has a certain architectural/planning vision for the area, then it should implement it at its own (public) dollar and see if the market is there to buy in at some point. Get the proper budget and pro-forma prepared, get the Council to digest it and approve it, hire professionals to do it and do it.
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