Our Lady of Paris, the literal translation for Notre-Dame de Paris, has received an outpouring of public sympathy following a devastating fire last week.
Having seen Notre-Dame in person I can tell you it’s something to marvel.
The full cost of the fire is still being tallied but I’m not sure you can put a price on something that is nearly irreplaceable.
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In a city projecting another deficit year, it might seem strange that Mayor Charlie Clark has decided to lay down a mandate for a new downtown rink.
But Clark has recently declared that a site for the new arena will need to be chosen before the end of 2019.
What’s the big rush?
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Last week, Saskatchewan’s Minister of Finance Donna Harpauer released her second budget, which projects a $34.4-million surplus for 2019.
Thinking selfishly, I wondered: how does this budget impact commercial real estate sale investment in our province?
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I purchased my second single family home in 1979. It was located at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac in a good neighborhood.
The downside was it backed onto a retail strip mall. That wasn’t a concern for me however because everything within that retail corridor was one storey.
Within a year of owning the home, it was announced that a five-storey office building would be constructed overlooking my rear yard.
I immediately sold the property.
Even though the project was public knowledge, I believed it would be easier to sell before it could be seen that the windows in that towering structure would have a full view of my yard.
From that early, first hand experience I can relate to homeowners that are suddenly faced with a project that significantly impacts the value of their home.
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The Regina Leader-Post published an article in 2008 with Stu Rathwell, a franchise partner in the new Regina’s Chili’s Grill and & Bar.
Stu shared that his Saskatoon location would be open by that year’s end.
His optimism about the Chili’s brand was hopeful; if things took off as he was hoping, he predicted people could expect to see several more open across the province.
Fast forward to 2019.
If you happened upon Saskatoon’s Preston Crossing the last week of February, you may have caught sight of Stu’s dream deflating right before your eyes.
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Entrepreneurs Louis and Shaol Pozez could not anticipate 63 years ago that the demise of their discount shoe business would be taken down by a network of computers
This isn’t a story from the rejected piles of Terminator franchise spinoffs; this is a reality.
The Pozez’ conception that grew into Payless ShoeSource brick and mortar stores across the U.S. and Canada are officially shuttering.
Their disregard for advancing online sales, in addition to highly leveraged assets, proved fatal.
Whether you’re buying or leasing commercial real estate, a municipality’s zoning bylaw tells you where you can locate your business.
The City of Saskatoon bylaw lists permitted uses and prohibited uses, which are pretty straight forward by definition.
A discretionary use, however, is identified as a use that the City may allow but will require a more thorough investigation before it approves and permits.
The Saskatoon Tribal Council (STC) is quickly finding out that a discretionary use in the City of Saskatoon is far from a slam dunk, though.
The City of Saskatoon has officially put out a tender to lease the Farmers’ Market building in Riversdale.
At current, the facility is leased to and operated by the Saskatoon Farmers’ Market Co-operative Ltd.
In their original agreement to lease the property, they outlined their plans to expand the market hours over time.
That vision has only grown to three advertised full market days. The City is ready to let someone else take a run at it.
There is lots of chatter on the street with the recently released preliminary budget from the City of Saskatoon which proposes a 4.5 per cent property tax hike in 2019.
That chatter is incomplete without stepping back and looking at a couple of key issues.
Those two issues are residential and commercial tax ratios and the ongoing cost of city infrastructure growth.
Say what you like about it but over 450,000 people fed their curiosity and took in Saskatoon’s new public art gallery this past year.
That’s more people than encompasses the proper City of Saskatoon population.
More astonishing is that the Remai Modern was only projecting around 190,000 visits during their inaugural year.
Have you ever stumbled onto one of those websites that features abandoned spaces?
My favourites are old malls. Once so bustling and now so neglected.
But what if you were looking at a vacant mall that was brand new?
Have you noticed any changes in the convenience store staples in Saskatoon?
There are a few subtle changes happening worth mentioning.
It seems like unlikely odds, Saskatchewan Liquor and Gaming Authority announced that all businesses awarded a cannabis retail permit were selected at random.
A University of Regina statistics professor told the Leader-Post that he’s calculated the odds of one company winning permits in four locations is a one in 1,319,760 chance.
Photo: Courtesy Leader-Post
Over a year ago, it was announced the Regina’s downtown Cornwall Centre was getting an H&M store.
The store opened this past weekend to a lineup of folks hoping to cash in on door crasher coupons between $10 and $300.
So why did it take so long to finally open the doors?
We have been receiving a wave of phone calls from potential tenants looking to cash in on the upcoming legalized marijuana trade.
They are fervently shopping for locations which I feel like may be premature.
Is the province really prepared for this? I’m not sure any part of Canada is.
The Saskatchewan provincial government expanded PST in the 2017 budget to include restaurant meals.
Has it made any impact on spending habits? Statistics so far indicate perhaps.
It was made public last week that the City of Saskatoon has purchased one of the last properties of the now mothballed Saskatchewan Transportation Company (STC) in Saskatoon.
The timing is especially interesting as the City recently commissioned a report regarding the feasibility of a downtown arena.
Could this be part of a bigger plan?
The discussion regarding crown participation in the private sector surfaced again recently.
A news story was published stating the Saskatchewan government was considering the sale of Innovation Place’s Saskatoon campus to the U of S and its Regina business park to the U of R.
Minister of Central Services Ken Cheveldayoff recently stated that he’s evaluating around 660 buildings across the province to see if they are still in proper use and if there is the possibility for them to be sold.
What are the questions that are not being asked?
Well, it depends on who you ask.
I didn’t live in Saskatoon when the facility was built in 1988 but from what I’ve read the location was as controversial a point then as it is now.
Saskatoon’s City Council recently commissioned a report to investigate the feasibility of a downtown arena development, researched by the group that helped Edmonton develop their Ice District.
To figure out why the discussion has come up, it may be prudent to take a look back.
I’m about to really date myself here but as a kid do you remember going to the grocery store and watching the cashier type each item into a till?
Bar code scanning changed everything, none more significantly than grocery stores.
If the inset picture is a confusing one to you, let’s take a trip down memory lane and a quick look into what the future holds for the grocery retail experience.
The Buggles famously sang “video killed the radio star” but streaming hasn’t quite put the final nail in the bricks and mortar music business just yet.
It looked like the end was near when HMV Canada announced they were closing all their stores but homegrown Sunrise Records has stepped up to fill the musical consumer gap.
My grandmother and I recently discussed the future of Sears Canada. Outside of heavy news coverage of the US Sears hardships, she identified something that dropped from all our radars: the absence of a Spring/Summer 2017 catalogue.
Amid no apparent fanfare, Sears Canada appears to have quietly shut down their catalogue service.
So what’s going on?
What makes the Oakland “Ghost Ship” fire most tragic was the preventable nature of everything that occurred.
In the days that followed the fire, news trickled out regarding the tenancy and landlord situation in place. Could the loss of life have been avoided? Indeed it could have.
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