OLDS — Don’t expect a second condo building behind Grouchy Daddy’s any time soon, the developer says.
Josh Remai, an owner of Saskatoon-based Span West Building Corporation, was taken aback when he began getting calls about the project after the Albertan ran a story on the approval.
Remai confirmed he had applied a few months ago for a development permit for the building, to be located next to a current condo building in Chinook Estates, the former Olds High School track and field land behind Grouchy Daddy's.
He was fully confident it would take many months – maybe six months or more – before the municipal planning commission approved it or not.
Remai still has a few condo units to sell in the area’s first condo building, which was officially opened in summer, 2018. His plan was to sell those while the permit process for the second building ran its course.
However, approval was granted last fall.
Remai says the quick approval of the permit is a testament to a surprisingly efficient town bureaucracy.
“Typically, it takes so long to get a development permit that I started applying for this development permit, expecting it to take six months to a year, which is just the way government is and all the rest of it. It just takes forever,” Remai said during an interview.
“And in this case, (development officer) Kyle (Sloan) over at the Town of Olds, he must be new," he added with a laugh “because he turned the development permit around in, like, 60 days.”
In an email, Sloan said Span West had not yet applied for a building permit.
“Unless an extension is signed, construction must commence within 12 months of the approval date of the development permit,” he wrote.
Remai said the quick approval of the development permit and the story about that created a pretty amusing situation.
“It was very funny, because I had my plumber who I talk with all the time. He called me. He said, ‘what the hell is this? You’re building a new building and you didn’t tell me about it?’
“And he’s a local plumber.
“And I said ‘what are you talking about?’
“And he said ‘it’s in the newspaper. You’ve got a new building coming.’
And I said ‘oh s---, what’s gone on here?’”
Remai said he’s also fielded calls from a few other contractors and others along the same lines.
“And the (answer) is we don’t actually have any intention of building this thing any time soon,” Remai said.
He was asked if it might be built in a year or so.
"I mean anything’s possible,” he said. “I’m not going to say to you – if all of a sudden I sold a bunch of condos in the first building and we were sold out and then we went to market and we sold another 10 homes, I could potentially try and build it this summer."
“I don’t take anything for granted anymore,” he added with a laugh. “So we’ll see how it all pans out here in the next little while. Just like everyone, we’re being a little bit cautious.”
