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By MattJelly (registered) - website | Posted July 27, 2011 at 13:13:02 in reply to Comment 66969
I'd say $55 Million is a mountain of money, especially from a cash-strapped municipality. As always, I'd like to see a report on the adaptive capabilities of the building from qualified experts- rather than basing decisions on anecdote.
At this point, I'm not convinced that the basic structure couldn't be incorporated into a new development for roughly the same cost of tearing it down and building new- the parking lot behind the BOE building is roughly the exact same size as the part of the property that faces Main Street. But I'm not an expert.
It's confusing to me why this particular property is of interest to McMaster and not another- as Graham points out, you'd think it would be cheaper to purchase a vacant lot than to purchase a building and spend money demolishing it. The only way it makes sense is if the Board sells it to Mac for an extremely low price- is the amount needed to purchase and demolish the building lower than the value of a vacant lot? I really doubt it.
Even if you take the Board of Education building out of the picture, it still doesn't make sense not to leverage the public dollars going into this project in a way that either fills a vacant lot, restores an empty building, or remediates a brownfield.
150 employees, students in the core and a training facility that might address our doctor shortage sounds great- but those don't have to be the only benefits to this project.
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