York Hotel Purchase

There has been much discussion over the recent purchase of the York Hotel by the City of Grande Prairie. Both sides offer sound reasons, but I supported this decision mainly to get rid of the crime and take back our down town. City council followed the precedents set by two other municipalities. Edmonton purchased their York Hotel to demolish it in order to clean up the illegal activities in their city. Prince George did the same thing with their Prince George Hotel.

Once organized crime gets a foothold in your community, it is difficult to police them. These groups have been operating for decades and are good at getting around the criminal justice system. While there have been businesses that have been attempting to revive the downtown, we’ve all witnessed the degradation of the area around the old York Hotel. In the past few years, the situation had gone from bad to worse. Enforcement was costing this city and taking valuable resources away from other areas of the city that could use RCMP services.

The city had undergone the process of expropriating the York Hotel because of unpaid taxes. This is a one to two year process. During this time, the company that owned the hotel decided to file for bankruptcy. The bankruptcy essentially stopped our process because ownership of the hotel would end up at the courts, who would put the hotel up for auction. We took into account a rumour that the organization that controlled this hotel was positioning them self to purchase it back from the bank at auction, which was not acceptable in our minds. Regardless, we felt as a council that a change of private ownership would not solve the issue of crime in that area and decided to follow the example of Edmonton and Prince George and take control of it ourselves.

After purchasing the hotel, there were three options that we explored:
1. Put the hotel on the open market and control who the buyer would be.
2. Renovate the hotel and allow a non-profit agency to use it for a different purpose – we would have issued an RFP (request for proposal) for this option.
3. Demolish the building, which would generate new options once completed.

After reviewing the state of the building, we decided it was best to demolish it. The condition of the building was fairly good above ground, but had several safety issues that needed to be dealt with in the basement including mechanical upgrades and hazardous health and safety concerns. In addition, the upper and lower level of the building was not up to code for current fire regulations, which would be a significant cost.

As a final note, there have been concerns over the fallout of the York Hotel closure. Drug dealers and prostitutes have relocated to other parts of the city and the homeless are also scattered throughout. These are issues that our RCMP are trying to deal with. It will be a difficult transition period for people that are affected, but I believe the ultimate result will make our city a better place to live in. I know this is little comfort for you if you have an undesirable element just outside your home. We must work together to solve this problem. These elements exist in our city and we are trying to rid ourselves of it. It was wrong when it existed around the York Hotel and it is equally wrong now that it has moved to a different location. The difference now is that they don’t have a safe haven to operate in. As the drug dealers and street walkers try to establish new places to operate, this should create an opportunity for enforcement to deal with it.