The B.C. Government Employees Union building stands across Quebec Street on Fifth Avenue from the post office, replacing the city parking lot that used to be there.
That wasn't the original plan for the site.
A San Francisco developer got city council and local residents all excited in 2005 by signing a letter of intent to build a condominium and retail complex there.
Ghiai Development Corp. CEO Yves Ghiai came to Prince George touting plans that would have seen 16 two-bedroom two-storey condominiums built above five retail and commercial spaces as the first step in a master plan that would have transformed all of Quebec Street into a pedestrian-only mall, featuring a luxury hotel, an arts centre and additional housing and retail development. It all sounded so wonderful.
Ghiai pointed to his previous success on several other similar projects across California. He said he was putting the finishing touches on buying the property, designing the building and lining up contractors.
The development would be called Metropolis and he couldn't wait to get started on the second phase, a mirror of the first development with another 16 condos.
Mayor Colin Kinsley was ecstatic.
Ghiai's announcement came just two months before local voters would head to the polls to choose between him and popular longtime city councillor Dan Rogers.
Best of all, Kinsley could take partial credit, pointing to a meeting with Ghiai's brother Alain, the operator of a home renovation business in Vancouver, as the spark that led to Metropolis.
Just 10 days before the election, Ghiai was back in Prince George, heaping praise on Kinsley and announcing a 65-unit apartment building with retail space on Second Avenue, between Dominion and Quebec streets, also a city parking lot.
All told, it was a proposed $18 million investment in downtown.
Kinsley beat Rogers by 642 votes. The following May, Ghiai announced pre-sales on the Metropolis condos with a huge caveat.
He needed 70 per cent of the units pre-sold before starting work. In other words, he would only build with other people's money, not his own. By September, Ghiai put pre-sales on hold, citing soaring construction costs.
In June 2007, the problem was an inability to find a building contractor. In January 2008, Ghiai said he had a contractor but getting some of the subtrades work remained problematic.
Finally, in May 2009, with Kinsley was gone and Rogers in the mayor's chair, the city terminated its relationship with Ghiai, after holding the land for the developer for four years with nothing but talk to show for it.
The cautionary tale here is what happens when mayors get too excited about economic development and too cozy with developers making big plans.
Both Shari Green and now Lyn Hall have been unabashed supporters of the hotel development next to the library, city documents show. Unlike Ghiai, construction of the Marriott Courtyard is happening, albeit after a delay of more than two years after the foundation was laid.
Ghiai was promised tax incentives but the hotel developers were also offered economic development funds from the Northern Development Initiative Trust in the form of an interest-free loan on top of the tax breaks. We'll never know if Metropolis would have happened if Kinsley could have put both a tax exemption and interest-free cash on the table for Ghiai.
What is more obvious, however, are the potential dangers and disappointments for both politicians and taxpayers becoming too emotionally and then financially invested in the dreams of developers.
Hall has touted the Marriott as a keystone to downtown growth and prosperity, the exact same language used by Kinsley to hype Metropolis.
With millions of public dollars behind it, it now appears the Marriott will be finished.
Whether it will really change the fortunes of downtown to justify the commitment of those dollars remains to be seen.
-- Managing editor Neil Godbout
