Moncton buying back parking lot it swapped for Castle Manor lawn
CBC
Moncton is spending $1 million to repurchase a downtown parking lot the city swapped for the Castle Manor lawn seven years ago.
Council voted 9-2 on Monday to buy back the property northwest of Robinson Court from Moncton-based developer Galco Atlantic Investments Network Inc.
Galco received the parking lot through a swap approved by a previous council in 2016. The deal required it to meet certain conditions, or the city could buy the parking lot back.
The deal originally called for Galco to start the foundation of a building worth $7.5 million within five years. The terms later changed to a building worth at least $10 million and an August 2024 deadline for the foundation.
Elaine Aucoin, Moncton's general manager of sustainable growth and development services, said the company wasn't able to meet the conditions so city staff brought the issue to council for a decision.
The vote will see the city complete the repurchase in October. However, the city may not own it for long.
Aucoin said the city aims to issue a request for proposal for the purchase and sale of the land, with similar conditions to those Galco had.
"We hope to get this property, this downtown property, redeveloped," Aucoin said, acknowledging that Galco had spent time and money to try to make that happen.
Moncton's planning committee approved Galco's plans for a six-storey, 84-unit apartment building on the site in 2022.
Galco president Stephen Gallant told reporters Monday after the council vote that there had been various setbacks, including the pandemic and rising interest rates, that made a building on the lot tough.
"From a project that barely was sustainable from the beginning, we ended up having a project that just didn't make financial sense," Gallant said.
"So at that point, we had to go back to the drawing board with [city] planners and those folks. And after several attempts to bring down our cost, we simply just ran out of time and that sort of thing."
Gallant said the lot's irregular shape and other features made it difficult to redevelop.
The planning committee had approved eight bylaw variances for Galco's proposed building, including reducing required tenant balconies and larger setbacks from the street for some parts of the building.