Handing over history - Kamloops, BC - News Article Locations on Waymarking.com

A large two storey brick station along the CNR tracks just south of the Thompson River, the station served the city for several decades until passenger service was discontinued by the CNR, date unknown. It was subsequently taken over by the city of Kamloops and leased out. The Culos Group had a 99 year lease on the building and had done a multi-million dollar renovation of the building.

In January of 2014 Kamloops This Week reported that the city was prepared to sell the building to the Culos Group for a dollar. Along with the deal was to come four years of tax revenue, among other things. The rest of the story follows, in part.

Handing over history

By: Andrea Klassen in History, Municipal Government, News January 16, 2014

The City of Kamloops is selling the former CN Rail station to the Culos Group in exchange for a dollar and four extra years of property-tax revenue, but some city councillors worry they have given up an important heritage site.

The Kelowna-based development company already had a 99-year lease for the heritage building, as well as two 60-year leases for plots of land on either side of the home of the Keg Steakhouse at 500 Lorne St.

However, according to David Freeman, the city’s real-estate manager, the leases were making it difficult for the company to further develop the site.

While businesses have expressed interest in two one-storey developments the Culos Group wants to build that would emulate the style of the rail station, Freeman said banks have been reluctant to fund loans based on a lease model.

“They can’t sell a 99-year lease,” he said. “They can sell a title.” Culos originally acquired a lease for the rail station in 1996, when the city was looking to develop Lorne Street.

As part of that deal, the company built condos, a public square and city-owned office space around the station, and gave the CN building a multi-million dollar overhaul.

Freeman said the city initially went with a lease model because it allowed the company to tap into federal funding. Additional leases for the plots of land on either side of the station were granted about 15 years ago during a second phase of construction.

“To us, the priority was to get the development going, to get the energy,” he said. “Back then we thought we could do it with leases.”

In exchange for the sale, the city will cut short a 20-year property-tax exemption granted to the company by four years.

Under the new agreement, the company will start paying property taxes in 2016, which Freeman said will provide the city with more than $105,000 in extra tax revenue annually.
Read more at Kamloops This Week