Sask.’s biggest residential complex close to completion in Saskatoon

Amid a housing crisis, Saskatoon is poised to add more than 200 new apartment units near the downtown early next year.

A city council committee heard Wednesday from Chris Luczka of Baydo Development Corporation that the first of two 25-storey towers in the City Park neighbourhood will be completed early next year.

That will add 235 new apartments, Luczka said, and the rest of the 474 apartments planned for the towers are set to be added when the second tower is completed by 2028, or possibly as early as 2027.

“Very excited to see this move forward,” Mayor Cynthia Block said at the planning, development and community services committee meeting.

The committee unanimously endorsed a multimillion-dollar property tax abatement for the long-awaited project at the corner of 25th Street and Fifth Avenue, construction of which was delayed significantly by the pandemic.

Council must still give the final stamp of approval for the tax break.

A city report trumpets the 560,000-square-foot Baydo Towers as the largest residential building in Saskatchewan history. The towers will be among Saskatoon’s and Saskatchewan’s tallest structures, and the tallest outside the boundary of the city's downtown.

It’s taken a long time to get this far; construction began on the $100-million project early in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic was declared.

Restrictions on employment to try to prevent the spread of the deadly disease limited progress on construction, which was further hindered by supply chain issues and other disruptions. 

Baydo originally applied in 2020 for the five-year tax abatement, which provides incentives for developers to build on vacant lots. The city once owned a parking lot where the towers are now rising.

Baydo has now requested that the abatement period begin on Jan. 1 and last until the end of 2030.

The total property tax break is estimated at $4.1 million, including $2.7 million in city and library taxes. The rest of the money would be collected for the provincial government to fund education.

The committee heard that city bureaucrats were unaware of any instance where the province has declined to agree to a tax abatement offered by city hall. But the size of Baydo’s request still requires provincial approval.

Baydo will only receive the abatement for the portion of the development that is completed, so the second tower’s portion will only kick in once it’s finished, and end in 2030.