The development company behind the Citadel Mews West and East seniors' complexes in St. Albert says the fire-damaged western building will be rebuilt as an “active adult luxury rental" complex, but no timeline has been confirmed.
Greg Christenson, the president of Christenson Developments, says the company has a $25 million rebuilding plan in the works that, besides no longer catering to seniors with supportive living needs, also involves tearing down the southern part of the building where the 2021 fire did the most damage.
“Our intent is to rebuild because it's such an excellent location and a popular building,” Christenson said. He added the plan also involves renaming the western building Terra Court North at Citadel Village.
The project's cost will go toward “retaining the parkade and the structure of the north half of the building and everything else being demolished,” he said.
“The south half was clearly destroyed by fire and probably should have come down by now, if I could do it over again.”
Citadel Mews East, which was untouched by the fire over two years ago, will remain a designated supportive living site that caters to seniors, and won't be renamed, Christenson said.
Once rebuilt, the building will be open to adults over the age of 18; however, Christenson said the intended market is 55 and older.
Christenson also said the company won't be offering life leases in the new building, unlike the system in place for former residents of Citadel Mews West.
A life lease involves a prospective tenant paying a mortgage-like sum of money to a landlord or building owner in return for reduced rental rates over a long period of time.
“Right now, life leases have, not a stigma to it, (but) it's almost like a dirty word,” he said. “It was a very popular program because it reduced the monthly costs for seniors, but right now it's just not a viable opportunity.”
“We definitely want to move away from the senior's health care stigma because we believe that the future in Alberta, particularly with the UCP government, is going to lean more to aging in place and home care, and away from the very expensive institutional care. “
Rebuilding process
Christenson said the company is expecting the rebuild to take at least 18 months, but a start date for construction has yet to be determined because of unfavourably high interest rates for the company.
“It would take roughly a $25 million mortgage to rebuild, which is very, very achievable for 112 units in the modern economy because the property would be approaching $40 million in value when rebuilt,” he said. "We're now in a position which is virtually impossible to, in my opinion, take the risk of building in a rising interest rate environment.”
