Developer looking to buy and re-develop Saskatoon city yards industrial area

A Vancouver-based company is showing interest in buying the city yards off 25th Street to re-develop the area.

Arbutus Properties has approached the City of Saskatoon with a proposal to purchase the roughly 22 acres of land for a new development.

“We’ve been keying in on the city’s policy to focus on infill development, which we think is the right plan.” Jeff Drexel, president of Arbutus Properties, said. “What we saw in the city yards was an opportunity where they had a continuous site and had an area with the size to make a development of this nature work.”

Arbutus’ plan includes a development with a mix of residential apartments, condos, retail and office space, as well as a full-sized grocery store; something the City of Saskatoon has been looking at for some time.

READ MORE: Current population not sufficient to support downtown grocery store: report

“We think it’s vital to the city,” Drexel said. “Without having a grocery store downtown, it’s really hard to create demand for infill and residential downtown.”

If approved, Drexel admits the city yards development would be a different type of project than those Arbutus has already brought to Saskatoon, including the Meadows community in the southeast part of the city.  The neighborhood includes a retail centre with a Costco that opened in 2016.

“We’re basically taking our knowledge of what we’ve come to learn in the residential market,” Drexel said. “We think we’re able to position this in the right way to create the demand and to create a viable development given our experiences.”

While the city yards weren’t identified as key land the city hopes to develop in the next five years, there has been interest in the industrial area. Most recently, a group eyed the property as a potential location for a soccer stadium.

READ MORE: Lee Genier looks to bring professional soccer to Saskatchewan

Arbutus has also taken a look at a city plan dating back to 2014 which identified an overhaul of the area that would cost around $130 million and increase the population of northern downtown to over 7000 people.

“We’ll take the best elements of that and try to utilize that,” Drexel said. “We’re going to take the good from that and weave it in to what we think needs to happen at that site.”

No cost for the project has been identified.  If the proposal is approved, Arbutus has requested six months to further develop a plan.

The proposal will be considered by the city’s planning, development and community services committee on Monday.