Developer, city reach deal on affordable housing project, raising hopes for downtown grocery

A city councillor is hopeful a delayed downtown grocery store project is back on track after the city and the developer reached a deal on another of its housing projects that had previously been denied.

In late October city council denied a request from Vancouver-based real estate developer Arbutus Properties to start work on an affordable housing project in the Rosewood neighbourhood due to unfinished sewer upgrades and money owed to the city.

That prompted Arbutus president Jeffrey Drexel to pause another project, a Pitchfork Market + Kitchen grocery store in Midtown mall.

"We will not start a new project in the City of Saskatoon," he told CBC News at the time.

But now with the deal reached with the city and Arbutus to proceed with the Rosewood development, Ward 3 Coun. David Kirton says he sees no reason why the grocery store project shouldn't move forward, too.

"It didn't work out during the public hearing that caused the grocery store to go on the back burner for Arbutus," Kirton said. "Now that that's taken care of, I suspect that we should be back to where we were the day before that bad day [last October]."

CBC reached out to Arbutus for comment but hasnot received a reply.

In October Drexel said the uncertainty surrounding the Rosewood tower affected Arbutus's $6-million investment in the downtown grocery store.

"The city administration and Arbutus have continued working together throughout the past months and are pleased to have arrived at a mutually agreeable resolution of this [Rosewood]matter," city manager Jeff Jorgensonsaid in a news release.

Jorgensonsays the agreement resolves the financial matters between the two parties while protecting city infrastructure.

Details of the deal will be laid out at Wednesday's council meeting.

Council was pushing for Arbutus to put $7 million into sewer infrastructure, including a new lift station, before permitting work to proceed.

Drexel says $5.5 million of that work has already been done.

Kirtonsays the disagreement was bad for the city and the developer, and he's happy they could come to a solution that satisfies both parties.

"I give credit to both the company and our city administration as well for being able to come back from a bit of a confrontation and decide that we're going to find out what works and they did," Kirton said.

Arbutus already has a Pitchfork Market + Kitchen in Rosewood. It says the downtown the grocery store will cost $6 million to build.

The Rosewood affordable housing development is estimated to cost $53 million to build.

Kirton says the city desperately needs both projects to go ahead.

"A downtown grocery story is huge," he said. "It's something that the city has been struggling with for so, so long and it's and it's a great operation as well.

"I think that helps in the long term for the city and trying to do a little bit more infill downtownget more people to live downtown. I think that'll make a big, big difference knowing that there's a grocery store nearby," Kirton said, adding the recently announced resurrection of Zellers coming to Midtown is an added incentive to come downtown.

And. he said. the city is also in dire need of affordable housing.

"Anywhere we can get affordable housing, let's do it," Kirton said.