Councillors will see early next year a proposal to move forward with redevelopment of the city’s only strip club.
Landscape architect Mike Salisbury, who is representing Manor Adult Entertainment owner Roger Cohen, said he has spent the past few months speaking with officials at city hall about a parcel of city-owned land adjacent to the strip club at Silvercreek Parkway and Wellington Street.
Last spring, Salisbury pitched an idea which would see that whole area redeveloped with possible uses including a residential tower, offices or retail space.
“It’s coming along, slowly,” the former city councillor said Thursday.
Salisbury has launched a website (www.sleemanmanor.com) to generate interest in the proposal, and said he has been in touch with brokers and developers seeking more information about the site.
He said the next step in the process will be reaching an agreement with the city about its land adjacent to the historic building, adding he hopes to have that in place in January or February, “so we can go out and see if we can get someone interested in hopefully developing something there.”
Jim Stokes, the city’s manager of realty services, confirmed his department has been working with Salisbury “to possibly expand the (Manor) site with some adjacent city land.
“It’s still an unknown but we are working toward that end,” Stokes said. “We’d likely work out some sort of agreement that would allow them to offer the whole parcel for sale, but that still has to be approved by council.”
When Salisbury initially floated the idea to redevelop the site he suggested it might also include a small sliver of province-owned land along the former Wellington Street road allowance.
However, he said this week that land cannot be developed for several reasons, including that it is on a floodplain.
“That property’s not critical to the development,” Salisbury said. “We can move forward without it. That was another loose end and I’m trying to move the project forward with the fewest loose ends possible.”
Salisbury said Cohen has had an environmental assessment conducted on the Manor property to confirm there is no contamination, and also had a structural assessment of the building, which was built in 1895 for former Guelph mayor and brewmaster George Sleeman.
He hopes city councillors will see the value in allowing the municipal lands to be redeveloped along with the private lands.
“That city property is going to sit there as a wasteland for all eternity because it’s not really useful for anything else,” Salisbury said. “This is an opportunity for the city to make some revenue and at the same time spur some development of a very high-profile location.
“It’s really not in the city’s best interest to continue having a strip club at such a critical junction,” he added.
Peter Cartwright, the city’s general manager of economic development and tourism, said his department has been only peripherally involved in the project to this point as the land issues are sorted out.
“I think it’s a really interesting concept,” Cartwright said of Salisbury’s proposal. “Anything we can do to spruce up that corner would certainly be welcomed.
“Mike’s certainly got our interest.”
by Scott Tracey, Guelph Mercury
http://www.guelphmercury.com/news/local/article/644513--redevelopment-plan-for-manor-moving-slowly