St. Clair College’s journalism school will set up shop downtown at the former Salvation Army building and pay the city $1 a year for the property under a deal announced Tuesday. The only condition is that the new owner must hold the property for 15 years, after which it will be granted title, according to a deal approved by council behind closed doors Monday night.
City solicitor George Wilkki said the land and building at the corner of Victoria and University avenues are valued at $917,500. Using a simple 15-year depreciation formula, if the college steps away from its commitment sooner, it must pay the city based on the remaining years multiplied by $61,200.
It’s a deal that’s great for the downtown, according to Mayor Eddie Francis.The college is investing millions to transform an empty building into a state-of-the-art facility that will draw up to 200 students to a “pre-eminent” corner of the downtown, said Francis. He said it takes council’s push for diversification of the city core one step further, with hopes it will be a stepping stone to more investment.
It was announced in September that the college was getting more than $5 million in federal funding for an enhanced journalism program under Ottawa’s recently created Southern Ontario Community Adjustment Fund. St. Clair has until the spring to use or lose the grant.
The city acquired the property in 2003 in a three-way land swap that saw the owner of the nearby Cheetah’s strip club obtain a city-owned vacant lot across the street at the corner of Victoria and Chatham Street, which had an estimated value at the time of more than $800,000. The former Salvation Army building was intended to be used as a workshop and rehearsal hall for the Capitol Theatre, but the Capitol fell on hard times and couldn’t find the estimated $1.2 million for the needed retrofit.
Before the city takeover, the property was the subject of a controversial megabar application that would have seen a restaurant, strip club and entertainment venue established with capacity for more than 2,200 patrons. City council fought the application under an existing moratorium on downtown adult entertainment clubs.
“We definitely didn’t want that,” Coun. Alan Halberstadt said of the strip club proposal that came at a time when downtown streets were being overrun by young adults drawn by Windsor’s Sin City image.
Halberstadt said there was “some mild concern” among councillors about now giving up the property for a dollar but that opposition evaporated due to the condition of the “derelict” building and the commitment of the college to pour millions into its refurbishment.
With the added students and foot traffic in the core, “it’s great value,” he said.
After the college’s 2006 takeover of the Cleary and conversion into the St. Clair Centre for the Arts — where enrolment jumped past 800 students this fall — Francis said the journalism school addition could lead to further post-secondary institutions eyeing the downtown.
Because it was city-owned, 275 Victoria wasn’t paying the municipality any property taxes. As a public institution, the college doesn’t pay property taxes, but instead a $75 per student annual tax, said city treasurer Onorio Colucci.St. Clair College pays the municipality $467,000 a year in such “head” taxes for all its Windsor facilities, Colucci said.