Capital Pointe owner loses fight to pause filling of hole at Victoria and Albert site

A provincial board has said the City of Regina has the legal right to fill in the hole at the Capital Pointesite, after denying a request to stay the city's order to fill in the site at the corner of Albert Street and Victoria Avenue.

A planned condo tower at the site has progressedslowly, withdelays and revisions to the construction timeline since the former hotel at the site wasdemolished in 2011.

In early April, thecityordered the site had to be filled in by the end of the month, stating that the property was in an unsafe condition.

WestgateProperties which owns the land and its affiliate, Fortress Real Developments, appealed the order.

They alsogave notice of their application for a stay of the order on April 17,which would have halted the city's order.

On Friday, the Saskatchewan Building and Accessibility Standards Appeal Board sided with the city, denying the application for a stay.

The appeal of the order, though, has yet to be decided on.The appeal hearing will be held in Regina on June 18.

Weeks before backfillingcould begin

Now that the original April 30 deadline to fill the hole at the site has passed and the stay was notgranted, though, the city has the legal right to fill in the hole.

That doesn't mean it will be filled before the appeal hearing, though.

The city's legal counsel said that the required public procurement process for getting a contractor to do so will delay backfillingthe sitefor several weeks.

Christine Clifford said the expectation is that it will take 17 weeks for the city to do everything needed to fill the hole.

During the stay of order hearing, legal counsel forWestgateargued the company had spent $14 millionon the project, and if the excavation is filled in development will be delayed and it will cost more to resume work at the site.

According to appeal documents, the appeal board was not convinced the company would suffer irreparable harm if there was no stay on the city's order.

The CapitalPointecondo building, whichis supposed to standat one of the city's busiest intersections, has been at a standstill for years.

Plans for the building, at the site of the former Plains Hotel, began in 2010. The new building was originally expected to be completed by June 2015.