LEVY: Could TCHC HQ fetch $22.5M on the open market?
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Back in 2012, former Toronto Community Housing Corp. (TCHC) CEO Gene Jones proposed selling their tony Yonge St. headquarters because it sent the “wrong message” to low-income tenants.
He was right.
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But within 20 months, the CEO who showed real passion for the tenants he served was booted out the door as he targeted mismanagement within the organization.
We’ve heard nothing since.
As I revealed in 2015, the city’s social housing agency — under former CEO Greg Spearn — spent $775,000 renovating the 44,000-square-foot Rosedale building.
However, given that Mayor John Tory’s executive committee will consider a 24-year extension of the $5.8-million mortgage on the building at its meeting Wednesday, it’s time to reconsider the idea of selling the building.
The report to the committee suggests that the city — as sole shareholder in TCHC — approve the renewal of the mortgage on the property with Infrastructure Ontario at a more favourable rate of 2.49%.
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It says that in 2013, TCHC had anticipated the sale or development of its headquarters, but “subsequently these redevelopment plans for the properties did not materialize.”
The report asks the city to provide a “guarantee” for the repayment of the principal and interest on the mortgage.
It is interesting to note that the outstanding mortgage on 931 Yonge St. — at $5.8-million– is virtually the same as what TCHC paid for the building in 2002.
That said, according to average Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB) sales figures from the second quarter of this year –provided to the Toronto Sun –office buildings with more than 5,000 square feet of space sold for an average of $512.03 per sq. ft.
If that figure held true, 931 Yonge St. could roughly fetch $22.5 million on the open market.
Besides the optics and TCHC’s cash-strapped status, there’s no better time than the present.
On Friday, CEO Kevin Marshman announced a restructuring that over the next six months will decentralize decision-making away from head office and into all buildings and communities.
The intention is also to create three regional offices headed by a general manager and 134 local service hubs across the city, where the prime point of contact for tenants will be the building superintendent. There will also be a local team focused on building services, tenancy management and community supports.
In addition, 83 seniors buildings are set to be handed over to the city next year.
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Given all of these changes and Marshman’s statement of last Friday that the “best service is provided by staff on the ground who know our tenants and understand their needs,” why the heck do the TCHC managers left standing (and those managers will be further reduced in six months, according to sources) need a fancy headquarters in Rosedale?
As Jones said seven years ago, the top managers should be closer to the people they serve.
For once, I’d love to see TCHC’s top brass do what’s right and actually show they care for tenants.
Speaking of doing what’s right, we are still awaiting the release of the Rubin Thomlinson report on workplace/human resource issues at TCHC.
An e-mail provided to the Toronto Sun shows the 200-page report was delivered to TCHC in mid-July.
Asked several times about the release, TCHC spokesman Bruce Malloch told me this week that the agency has only recently received a final copy of the report.
“We hope to shortly be in a position, guided by the direction of our board, to publicly share aspects of the report’s findings,” he said. “Our ability to do so is somewhat limited because of ongoing litigation related to certain aspects of the report.”
I think that’s a bunch of malarkey.
Given that sources say the report speaks to harassment against female employees, why are the women on the board — Ana Bailao and Paula Fletcher — not demanding this be made public now?
SLevy@postmedia.com
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