City wants old hospital demolished within 18 months

At a special meeting late this afternoon, Sault Ste. Marie city council voted to declare three former hospital sites as surplus to its needs.

Minutes after the vote, an unofficial copy of a request for proposals (RFP) was posted on the city's website, signifying that prospective developers should be prepared to demolish the old General Hospital building at their own expense within 18 months.

The city has estimated demolition will cost $4.75 million.

The deadline for proposals will be Nov. 4, with council to decide on the successful applicant on Nov. 12.

Councillors were assured at today's meeting that conditions of sale will have penalty clauses to ensure required work gets done.

Tom Vair, the city's chief administrative officer, said the RFP contains language indicating that "the city is interested in seeing proponents that could develop affordable housing, or at least comment on their approach to affordable housing."

"We've added language that would ask the proponents to consider and highlight any steps the development would include related to green building concepts and methodologies," Vair said.

"We've also included language in the RFP to talk about the potential for the Housing Community Improvement Plan that the city has, so proponents would be able to take advantage of that."

On Nov. 12, city staff will recommend proponents to develop three former hospital properties:

• the former General Hospital building is to be demolished within 18 months 
• anyone wishing to renovate the former renal unit would need to have building permits filed within 12 months 
• the RFP doesn't specify a timeline for a vacant  third lot on the waterfront, but proponents will be scored on the speed at which they plan to develop the property

In an interesting exchange at today's council meeting, Ward 1 Coun. Sandra Hollingsworth seemed to hint at some involvement in the old hospital site by local architect David Ellis.

"[Have] any architects contacted you over the last few days, since we talked about this at council?" Hollingsworth asked.

"No architects," CAO Vair responded. "We do know there are different groups looking at the site, and certainly you know we're we're looking forward to Nov. 4 to reviewing those proposals."

Hollingsworth then appeared to ask whether Ellis hadn't submitted sketches to the city, before she was interrupted and cut off by Mayor Matthew Shoemaker.

That exchange can be viewed starting at 13:57 on the official video of today's meeting.

SooToday has attempted to reach Ellis to determine what involvement he has, if any, with the former hospital property.

Mayor Shoemaker expressed appreciation to city staff for scrambling to fast-track the request for proposals after council agreed on Oct. 1 to buy the derilect former hospital grounds.

"The sooner we will start recovering our return on investment: that is the critical aspect of this whole process," the mayor said.

"Seeing it redeveloped and starting the process of recovering our return on investment is what we want to get to, and having the special meeting to declare it surplus today helps us keep that timeline as short as possible."

Additional information is currently being added to this article.