Replacement for fire-damaged St. Albert seniors residence likely to start this year: property owner

The president of a residential property development and management firm says his organization is eyeing a start date later this year to build a replacement for a St. Albert seniors complex that burned down nearly three years ago.

Greg Christenson of Christenson Developments told CTV News Edmonton on Thursday that plans to replace the Citadel Mews West are moving ahead now that financial conditions have changed.

"Interest rates are no longer going up, construction materials are stable," Christenson said, adding the plan is "to rebuild in 2024, start in 2024."

The seniors residence on Erin Ridge Road east of St. Albert Trail was damaged by a fire on May 6, 2021, that displaced 110 residents. A portion of the building has been tarped off ever since, with fencing surrounding the building, which is connected to another portion of the complex to the east of it.

Christenson said his company, while sorting through plans to replace the building, has been waiting for other external factors to settle, referring to the effects on the economy by the COVID-19 pandemic and supply chain issues.

"If you remember back winding the clock back, interest rates ... the Bank of Canada rate was at 0.25 per cent," he said. "Over that period of time, it went up to five (per cent), so you had a situation where it was actually a strong disincentive for anybody to build anywhere — St. Albert or wherever — because you've got supply chain issues, costs going up, interest rates going up."

Christenson says today's "status of building environment is completely diametrically opposite than it was two years ago."

It includes recent moves by the federal government to stimulate the construction of rental housing.

"This was not the case two years ago," he said.

"In fact, they were actually making it very difficult to build rental housing. They just announced another $15 billion of CMHC insurance for rental housing (and) in the last approximately 12 months, they've eliminated GST on rental housing ... The whole environment's gone from making it difficult to build, to actually encourage and building."

Replacing Citadel Mews West can't come soon enough for a nearby business, which saw a significant reduction in traffic to his liquor store.

"I have lost so much business from that building ... there were so many customers," said Gurdeep Singh, manager of Olympia Liquor.

With files from CTV News Edmonton's David Ewasuk