The Events Centre has been without a naming-rights partner for nearly two years, but city council is apparently in no hurry to find one after rejecting a proposal from a national agricultural company.
Cal Babych, president/CEO of Babych Group Properties Ltd., approached city hall four months ago about purchasing the old Union Hospital lands at 455 Fairford Street East for $1 and receiving tax abatements over five years, enabling his company to construct about 200 multi-family rental housing units there.
Babych would have started construction of the first 80 units by July 30, 2026, and finished building all units by July 30, 2027.
This housing deal would have been worth $50 million.
In exchange, Babych Group Ltd. would have sponsored the Multiplex for 10 years, starting on Jan. 1, 2025, and ending on Dec. 31, 2034, and would have paid $150,000 annually or $1.5 million in total.
City hall declined to speak for this story, saying by email, “The city has no comment.”
Negotiating with city hall
In a phone interview with the Moose Jaw Express/MooseJawToday.com, Babych said his company offered $1 for the hospital site because it wasn’t sure whether the lands were contaminated, and if they were, the business would assume the liability to clean up the property.
The company began negotiations with city administration, with officials asking if the business was also interested in becoming more involved in the community in other ways.
Babych noted that, based on conversations with council members, sponsoring the Events Centre seemed like a “cool opportunity.” Moreover, it would have been a solid connection with the family’s hockey history: Cal played in the Western Hockey League for five years while his father and uncle had lengthy NHL careers.
Those negotiations with city administration — including city manager Maryse Carmichael — went well, with both parties agreeing on most points and the Babych Group willingly adapting its proposal, the president/CEO said.
Both parties met about seven times over several weeks, attempting to hammer out a deal.
Falling on deaf ears
Babych thought the negotiations reached a point where the deal seemed “very attractive” to both sides and would have been a long-term win-win for everyone. However, the proposal “fell on deaf ears” because whoever presented the project to city council allegedly had a “negative bias” and recommended that the initiative be rejected.
City administration presented that report to council during the in-camera — private — portion of the executive committee, which prevented Babych from attending or speaking in favour. He thought that was unfortunate since the public exposure would have benefited the project and given residents the opportunity to discuss it.
Moreover, the company allegedly had the support of several “heavy hitters” in the business community who wanted to see the housing project happen.
“But really, the big one that I don’t think the city was able to get their head around was (the proposed) $1 (property price),” Babych said, noting city hall may have thought it couldn’t justify that sale to citizens.
Having the Babych Group’s name on the Events Centre was also an enticing prospect since it would have anchored the company in Moose Jaw for a decade and given it a long-term presence.
Cleaning up
Meanwhile, his company could have generated plenty of long-term revenue from the housing project, along with property taxes. Moreover, the Babych Group would have assumed cleaning up the old hospital site, which could cost $300,000 to $700,000 and be a “pretty sizeable amount of risk” to take on.
The city wants the province to clean up that site, which means regardless of who pays, taxpayers will be on the hook for remediating it, said Babych. That’s why the company thought it could do the “relatively responsible thing” and “absolve the taxpayers” of that task and cost.
Babych recalled city officials saying the old hospital property was worth $1.2 million — he thought the value was slightly less than $1 million — and was clean of environmental contamination. Moreover, another company had proposed purchasing that property to build 40 housing units, but the deal apparently fell through.
The businessman thought the situation was a nuisance because his team put plenty of work into the proposal, lined up architects and was ready to begin construction this fall. Yet, he plans to resubmit a proposal to city hall because he still wants his company to do more business in Canada’s Most Notorious City — potentially up to five projects.
“We were pretty excited about that opportunity because we were willing to spend some pretty good dollars — and we still will … ,” Babych added. “In my opinion, … one or two people shouldn’t be able to dictate the fate of what’s (best) for the residents of Moose Jaw.”
