Quote:
Originally Posted by Frequitude
How is that very different than the city giving the land to CalgaryNEXT for free. "Not selling" = "buying" from a cash flow perspective. Now, I don't know what the two values are and yes creosote negatively impacts the WV land value, but I'm willing to bet that when you consider the above plus an assumed relatively lower infrastructure costs on Remington that $50M-$80M could be made up pretty quickly.
It just feels...more right.
(obviously lots of gut feels and assumptions in there but directionally it feels right...)
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The difference is that the WV land has negative value. The City would be better off giving it away but nobody in the private sector is going to take on that environmental liability.To build in railtown would mean allocating public funds to take out a site that can and will be developed by the private sector, while doing nothing to solve the West Village problems. Keep in mind that the infrastructure and cleanup costs will be borne by the public sector eventually - they can essentially be viewed as sunk costs in this case.
In my opinion, it makes sense to allocate that public investment towards the WV - you solve the new stadium issue while cleaning up contamination for likely the same cost as the land acquisition in railtown, while still allowing an opportunity for private sector development to occur in railtown.
I agree that it would be optimal to see entertainment venues located along a 4 Street SE corridor leading from the East Village to the Stampede grounds, but it might make sense to spread things out as well. The west end of downtown is already devoid of vibrancy - I'm not sure it makes sense to add another vertical suburb in the WV.