Real Estate Advisory

Project Description

NBLC was retained by the City of Kingston in February 2013 to examine the development feasibility of the city-owned portion of Block 4, located in the City’s North Block District.

Block 4 is located in the downtown and waterfront area, which offers a broad range of compelling market characteristics including waterfront views, and access to retail and commercial services. Demographic and local real estate trends also point to growing demand for high density residential developments. Despite these positive attributes, Block 4 also has significant development encumbrances including, contamination and soil decommissioning costs for any future developer and presence of historic buildings that must be protected.

Using residential and commercial market data, NBLC worked alongside a team of sub-consultants to develop a series of development scenarios for Block 4, and build a financial model to test the financial feasibility and assess the residual land value generated from each, from the perspective of a developer, as though it were sold now.

The results of this study were presented in a series of open houses and used by City Staff and Council to assess whether to proceed with the disposition of Block 4. In the event of a sale of the site, results were further used to help with the development of a request for proposal process.