The City owns strategically located land adjacent to the Moody Centre SkyTrain station, currently used as overflow parking for SkyTrain commuters. I commissioned this concept to show what a purpose-built, City-owned building could look like on that site. I am calling it the Moody Innovation Centre or MIC for short.
Designed above ground, it eliminates deep excavation and avoids groundwater interference the area is well known for, and building without underground parking makes it substantially more cost-effective than a conventional development.
During my term on Council, the City received inquiries from local post-secondary institutions interested in establishing a presence in Port Moody. We simply had nowhere to put them. The Moody Innovation Centre could change that, generating long-term lease revenue for the City while transforming Moody Centre into the employment and education hub it has the potential to be.
This would be a significant undertaking, most likely requiring partnerships and creative financing. But the best ideas usually are.
The City also owns approximately 27 acres of land along the Barnet Highway, including 4.45 acres of buildable area on a former remediated dump site. Port Moody residents will recognize the location as the site where the electronic billboard stands along the Barnet Highway. The location offers excellent highway access, ideal for warehousing or staging facilities that could be leased to the film industry, used for additional works yard purposes, or both.
Warehousing is one of the most cost-effective building forms available. Single-level construction eliminates the structural complexity and cost of multi-storey buildings, and modern tilt-up construction technology, where large concrete wall panels are cast and then lifted into position, makes it faster and less expensive to build than conventional methods. The result is a functional, durable facility that can be delivered at a fraction of the cost of other building types.
The Lower Mainland film industry is constantly seeking accessible, affordable space close to Vancouver. This site could fill that need while generating meaningful non-taxation lease revenue for the City.
The City currently has 38 public EV charging ports in civic parking spaces, of which 21 are operated by BC Hydro and 17 are City-owned. Of the BC Hydro-operated ports, 6 are currently offline due to Inlet Fieldhouse construction.
Under the current arrangement, BC Hydro designed, installed, and maintains its 21 chargers at an infrastructure cost of approximately $575,000, in exchange for which the City receives no charging revenue and no carbon credits. The City does receive some revenue from its 17 owned chargers, but only enough to help offset electricity costs.
In my professional experience negotiating commercial leases for EV charging operators on private land, receiving meaningful monthly lease revenue per port is the norm, with the operator covering all installation and maintenance costs. The current BC Hydro arrangement represents a significant revenue opportunity that may have been left on the table, which could have helped soften any tax increases.
Regardless of what renegotiating those arrangements looks like going forward, I will ensure that any entity using City land or City assets pays fair market value for that privilege. Residents own these assets. They should benefit from them.