15 October 2012

Oxford Properties' Casino Proposal Promises a Park Built on Air it Doesn't Own

Toronto Ontario - There is one problem with the enticing, landmark-connecting, urban park promised in the latest downtown casino proposal:  It will have to be conjured out of very thin air.
 
Oxford Properties Group included the park in its concept for a $3 billion redevelopment of the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, imagining a green jewel that would span the industrial no-man's land of the Railway Lands.
 
"For anybody who has walked that area, you know it's not user-friendly to get from the Dome to the CN Tower," Oxford chief executive Blake Hutcheson told the Star. "This park is really made to serve as a platform that links all those public amenities together." He added, though:  no casino, no redevelopment, no 5.5-acre park.
 
The problem is, Oxford is promising something it can't currently build and may never be able to. It does not own the "air rights" required to build anything over the bustling rail corridor around Union Station.
 
Metrolinx, the province's transportation agency, owns those rights from track level up to 8.2 metres. Air rights above that belong to Toronto Terminals Railway, owned by the CN and Canadian Pacific railways.
 
Oxford's Claire McIntyre confirmed her company has no rights to the space, but compared acquiring the rights to the process of getting permission to build a bridge, "albeit a 5.5-acre bridge."
 
"Getting the (air) rights is a process, but we are involved in that process, working co-operatively with both Metrolinx and TTR, and we will get there," McIntyre said in an interview Monday.
 
Metrolinx confirmed it recently received an "unsolicited" proposal from Oxford, but no discussions have started. "We get lots of proposals," noted the agency's Anne Marie Aikins.
 
Toronto Terminals Railway did not respond to the Star's queries.
 
Area Councillor Adam Vaughan, who is vehemently opposed to a casino in the city core, said he knows from experience that acquiring air rights over the corridor is a long, difficult, and costly endeavour.
 
Getting permission to build just the developer-funded pedestrian "Bridge of Light" from Front Street West to Concord City Place condos, which rests on a single pillar planted in the midst of the tracks, took four years of negotiations, a heavily restricted construction schedule, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees, Vaughan said.
 
"I think Oxford's park is the shiny bauble to make people go, oooh, that's nice, and then (Oxford) will say later it's too complicated, after the casino box is built," he said.
 
Vaughan said that, before a frenzy of interest from potential casino developers was sparked by moves from the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp., he had seen earlier Oxford redevelopment plans. They included three office towers, Eaton Centre-sized retail space, and expanded convention facilities, in other words, much of what's in the current plans, with no casino.
 
OLG has said it will build one new gambling palace in the GTA, downtown being favoured, but it won't force one on the city.
 
Mayor Rob Ford's executive committee will receive a city staff report next month on the pros and cons of a casino and possible locations, including Exhibition Place, Front Street, the Port Lands, and Woodbine racetrack. Council is expected to vote on whether to approve a casino early in 2013.
 
David Rider.