| The Bois-des-esprits Condos: Doing the Math. The 13 acres of aspen trees conditionally zoned RM-2 (condo) in the Bois-des-esprits forest represents a significant future cash flow for the Grandin Park partnership (Ladco/Province of Manitoba). An interesting property to compare this to is the new Parks of Canterbury low-rise condominium complex currently being built at 1185 St. Anne�s Road. This piece of cleared green field property alongside the Seine River is the best comparison that I can see at this time. Originally designed to contain 151 units, the owners, Terra Firma Estates Ltd., were refused permission by the City to build any structures in the flood plain. They therefore removed one building from their plan and they now propose to build 126 units. The prospective units are currently being offered for sale, starting at a minimum price of $158,900 for each unit. This realizes a minimum gross revenue of $20,021,400 for Terra Firma. The entire 5 acres of land was valued by the City assessors at $187,00 in 2002. First mortgaged by Terra Firma in 1978 at $143,000, the land was remortgaged at $300,000 in 1983 when the market was significantly higher. The partners were probably able to remove their original investments at that time. City sewer and water finally arrived on St. Anne�s Rd. in 2001, and the land was quickly rezoned from A-5 agricultural to RM-2/PR1 in 2002. From provided diagrams I estimate the buildable area outside the required Park Reserve on the Seine River to be about 31/2 acres. The unique aspen grove in the Bois-des-esprits is 13 acres +. Therefore, a conservative estimate is that it could contain 500 units, or 4 times as many condos as Parks of Canterbury. At a conservative minimum of $160K per unit, this means a gross revenue of 80 million dollars. The province's gross revenue would be 38% of that, or $30.4 million. The affected land, valued by Grandin Park at $65K per acre,would only be worth $845,000 to the Grandin Park partnership if SOS and the City managed to purchase it undeveloped. It is therefore highly unlikely that the Province would desire to exchange their share of this money, $222,000 for a potential windfall in the millions. What rate of return justifies clear cutting a unique grove of silver-barked trembling aspen? Ten percent? The Province could conceivably make a profit of $3 million. While the former City Forester recommended preserving it, the chances of the Province giving SOS the funds to purchase the aspen grove from the Grandin Park partnership are therefore not very high. The only option for SOS may be renewed political action, as the aspen grove is probably doomed otherwise. |
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