Millions could be available for city in “forgotten” fund
Posted Jan 10, 2016 4:18 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
The City of Calgary may be coming across a large chunk of change it didn’t know it had, thanks to a fund created almost 20 years ago.
Ward 9 councillor Gian-Carlo Carra is bringing a motion forward on Monday to form a new committee to look at a legacy fund for the sale or lease of the Calgary General Hospital, which was set up in 1997.
Carra told 660 NEWS, over time, the fund was created a year before the demolition of the hospital was approved, and was meant to put money from land sales towards the community. However, over time, it was put on the back burner.
“What we have now is a fund that is hidden behind the surface,” he said. “It becomes mature when the final land sales in the bridges take place, and those are due to happen this year.”
He added, it was originally worth $3 million, but now, that number could be much larger.
“It’s somewhere between, I’d say, $10 and $25 million, once the smoke clears,” Carra said. “I don’t want this to be about me deciding how we spend that money. I want this to be about a dually constituted governance board to come together and review all of the options and establish a very thoughtful terms of reference for the disposition of the funds.”
However, he did say he’d like to see the fund go towards building a bridge from the LRT station, over Memorial Dr. and the Bow River, onto St. Patrick’s Island.
