River Landing saga to continue with Lake Placid as the buyer
In a 9-2 vote last night, city council agreed to sell Parcel Y in Saskatoon’s Central Business District to Lake Placid for development of their proposed River Landing Village.
According to a story on the Star Phoenix website, “An agreement is now in place to develop the city’s most coveted piece of riverfront land with a new deadline and promises that financing for the megaproject will be available soon….Lake Placid CEO Michael Lobsinger said the agreement for the sale of the land paves the way for the company to secure financing.”
I’m totally confused. Here’s why.
On April 12, council voted to reopen negotiations with the developer and to conduct an independent audit to determine if Lake Placid has sufficient financing to complete the project.
On May 25, following what Mayor Don Atchison described as “the most due diligence that the city has done on any land sale,” city council, sitting as an executive committee, reached an agreement on price with Lake Placid.
The story that ran in the Star Phoenix the following day included this bit of text, “We’re ready, willing and able now to proceed with the $200-million project,” Lake Placid CEO Michael Lobsinger said Tuesday. “We have financing in place . . . and are ready to move dirt in June or July.”
Under the new agreement Lake Placid has until November 1 to provide documentation that between $50 million and $60 million dollars in financing is secure.
Huh?
All of our Lake Placid posts are here.
I’m always happy to answer your Saskatoon real estate questions. All of my contact info is here. Please feel free to call or email.
Norm Fisher
Royal LePage Saskatoon Real Estate
There's 21 Comments So Far
June 15th, 2010 at 11:42 am
A local municipal affairs blogger has been on top this story throughout; here’s his short summary of last night’s events, with a full “blow-by-blow” of the Council meeting to follow soon.
http://www.blog.seanshaw.ca/?p=506
June 15th, 2010 at 11:45 am
Surprise Surprise !
June 15th, 2010 at 12:32 pm
This is pretty ridiculous.
June 15th, 2010 at 12:45 pm
Hey all,
I have a great idea for a huge development at this site, and I have the financing in place, but the money is all tied up in a bank account in Cyprus. It’s quite unfortunate.
However, you may be able to help. I’m sure with one or two co-signers, this thing could fly. Would anyone like to help? I’m just one signature away from getting the money… in fact, I’ve been one signature away for a good nine months now, but not to worry. it’s all good! (http://bit.ly/cCe5kA)
Cheers,
Jen
June 15th, 2010 at 1:39 pm
lawtalkinguy,
Thanks. David Hutton has a post of notable quotes from last night’s meeting that’s also interesting.
Rick,
You win!
Nate,
Yep! I’m stunned that we’ve gone from “we’ll be bustin’ ground in June or July” to “see you in the fall if we see you at all.”
Jen,
Are you being sarcastic?
June 15th, 2010 at 3:06 pm
Jen, would you take an out-of-state third party cheque…? ;D
June 15th, 2010 at 6:22 pm
Loucks has a five or six minute interview with Mr. Lobsinger on the NewsTalk website from early this morning. Asked why he expected things to go better than they did last time, Lobsinger replied, “We have now, along with the help of Dr. Nassir and his family, we have secured financing subject to obviously the vote last night and securing the land. So that was the first step in moving forward with our financing. We have commitments in place to move forward. So now it’s just a matter of mobilizing our troops and going forward.”
June 15th, 2010 at 6:46 pm
Norm, knew I could count on you to cover this.
So, the city is allowing Nassir to resurrect this with only a $250,000 deposit?
In 2 days. Doesn’t Nassir have that $5 million he got from the U of S?
Seems like a pretty lopsided deal, on a $200 Million project.
Especially after the city has budgeted nearly $100 Million for it.
You think at least the city would ask Nassir and co to pay for the lot, after all, he is getting it at half price.
June 16th, 2010 at 11:30 am
Nick,
In fact, weren’t they suggesting that they could cut a cheque for the land “tomorrow” back in March?
I would still like to see this project go but it would have been nice if the city had gotten a little more up front.
June 16th, 2010 at 3:28 pm
An interesting side-note. The language within the Sales agreement suggests the city can waive the deadline on their own accord without having to come back to Council to ask for permission. This is a clause not in the original agreement that died last fall.
June 16th, 2010 at 10:45 pm
Sean,
Interesting indeed.
I’d really like to see the project move ahead without further delays, but like you, I’m a bot surprised by the lack of transparency. I thought we’d have heard more about the due diligence conducted by the city and I really did expect that full payment would have been produced for the land. This really just became another extension to the previous “drop dead” date, didn’t it?
I appreciated your “blow by blow” account of Monday’s council meeting.
June 17th, 2010 at 1:40 am
We’d all love to see a nice new condo and destination centre downtown but why do these guys get the privilige of doing it for $250,000 (above poster)? I have that much in my RRSP. Let me have at it for that much! The building looks nice, but talk about favoritism!
June 17th, 2010 at 1:41 am
To clarify in the interview they said
“We have now, along with the help of Dr. Nassir and his family, we have secured financing subject to obviously the vote last night and securing the land. So that was the first step in moving forward with our financing. We have commitments in place to move forward. So now it’s just a matter of mobilizing our troops and going forward.”
So the big Calgary development company didn’t have their own $250,000?
Yikes
June 17th, 2010 at 6:22 am
skeptix,
Sorry, I think you’re confused. The deposit on the land is $250,000 but the actual price tag is over $5 million. The improvements on the land will be somewhere in the range of $200 million. When Lobsinger made the statement you quoted he was talking about the $200 million dollar finance package, not the deposit for the land.
June 17th, 2010 at 10:08 am
I’m not in particular favor of Mr. Lobsinger, but I do feel impressed by his persistence, confidence and persuasiveness. I’d really love to know how much his own company has and how much he’ll need other investors to contribute. It’s not an easy job, which I guess is part of the reason why other even richer and bigger developers didn’t come compete with him. I hope it’s not because they think there’re gonna lose money eventually…
June 18th, 2010 at 4:14 pm
This is absolutely crazy. Lobinsger is going bankrupt in Calgary. He has a large hole in the ground but ran out of money prior to building. There has been a gaping hole for 12 months with no action. The bank that holds the mortgage on the lands is looking to take Lobsinger into Bankruptcy because he cannot afford to build and the hole (10 stories deep) is a HUGE liability.!!! Does the City of Sask. know about this partially built project???? If Lobsinger cannot continue with his Calgary project (Centuria on the Park) how is he going to afford River Landing.
What is the REAL relationship between Atch and Lobsinger!! Has anyone asked that question!~!
June 18th, 2010 at 4:38 pm
Janice,
It seems somewhat curious that there is nothing I can find online that even suggests Lake Placid is in any kind of financial trouble. Usually that kind of stuff spreads like wildfire. A couple of articles I read suggested that the project has been run into issues because of four sinkholes near the site and that it was halted for redesign with no suggestion of financial problems.
Do you have something more?
June 18th, 2010 at 7:04 pm
“What is the REAL relationship between Atch and Lobsinger!! Has anyone asked that question!~!”
Sweet, we’ve reached the ‘unfounded conspiracy theories’ portion of the program.
June 21st, 2010 at 12:18 am
Some question marks have been raised with regard to the relationship between Atch and Lobsinger after it was discovered Lobsinger was using Atch’s home e-mail:
http://owlsandroosters.blogspot.com/2009/11/mayor-don-atchison-should-explain.html
[i]…if Atchison is exchanging emails with developers – or anyone else for that matter – from his home and city business is involved, then that correspondence is likely not subject to the province’s freedom of information legislation and therefore would be free from public scrutiny and accountability.[/i]
June 25th, 2010 at 2:49 pm
I live in Calgary and am very aware of the financial issues that Lake Placid is having in this city. There is a very large hole in the ground of which Lake Placid does not have the money to finish. It is the Centuria on the Park site. The crane has even been removed, leaving a very large empty hole in the ground. Has anybody at all thought that this might happen in River Landing?? It has been a vacant hole in the ground for over a year in Calgary.
Check out his webpage as well – there are only a handful of staff left. Rumour in our city is that Lobsinger can’t even get contractors to work for him because he owes so much money. Norm, if you want, please do a title search on Lobsingers Centuria on the park project….you will see the huge amount of liens on the property due to non-payment by the Lobsinger group.
This entire saga has been policitical from the onset. Its sad actually.
June 25th, 2010 at 2:50 pm
In fact, if you check out the Lake Placid website, even his two sons are not working with him any longer. Seems curious to me!
http://www.lpdi.ca