By Lindsey Cole
The Oshawa Express
With the Genosha Hotel conversion in full swing and the Regent Theatre getting a major facelift, Oshawa’s downtown is bustling with activity.
Except one King Street East property that was also supposed to undergo a major façade improvement in 2007 sits empty. And the $250,000 loan sits in limbo.
“It appears that the loan agreement was never signed,” says the City’s Downtown Development Officer David Tuley.
“The permit is still active, there hasn’t been work in the last six months. It’s been off and on.”
There are no construction workers outside. And according to those at the city and the developer himself, there is simply no update to be found.
In 2007, developer Feroze Virani of Heathrow Properties Inc. was in talks with several hotel franchises interested in putting their name on the 63 King St. E. building, across from the Genosha Hotel.
On top of that, Oshawa council approved a $250,000 Façade Improvement Loan to help Virani with the front of the building.
However, since then not much has been happening.
“He was before committee and council,” City Manager Bob Duignan says.
“Anything he would do now is in his court. Really any initiative now is solely in his court.”
The 2007 loan-agreement stated Virani must sign an agreement that the property would be operated as a hotel only.
In a previous Oshawa Express story, Virani said nothing else would be financially viable; the hotel was the only option.
The King Street property used to house The Refuge and Gate 3:16 outreach centres and the plan was to build a 45-to-50-room hotel.
However, Virani himself says there is nothing to report and both Duignan and Tuley concur.
“I don’t have an update right now,” Virani told The Oshawa Express.
“I don’t have any comment at all. We don’t have enough information.”
The loan was supposed to be payable over 10 years and, if fully repaid within three years, 25 per cent would have been forgiven. But since it was never signed, Tuley says the matter would be under review should Virani decide to exercise the agreement.
“That we would have to review,” Tuley says, adding in the last six months there have only been minor interior improvements.
“It’s been little bits and pieces.”
Duignan says the $250,000 was not given to Virani and wouldn’t have been until the building was complete, as is standard practice under improvement loans.
“We haven’t heard a thing,” he says. “He doesn’t get the money until he completes.”
Virani was also approved for $550,000 in loans under the city’s Central Business District Renaissance Community Improvement Plan with the hope of building a 100-room
Marriott brand hotel at 11 Simcoe St. where the old Scotiabank building was. However, that deal fell through once an agreement was reached with the University of Ontario Institute of Technology to house the faculty of education there.
According to John Mutton, who worked as a consultant for Virani as part of the company Municipal Solutions, there are whispers the university could be looking at the King Street property too.
“Nothing has moved there. They fixed up the side and front,” he says.
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