Dr. Sean Hantke at a ceremony announcing the project on Oct. 15 2019 (Lethbridge News Now)

By Justin Goulet

First TRIP funded project announced in Lethbridge

Oct 15, 2019 | 12:54 PM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – The City of Lethbridge is giving a local business a leg up on a new development.

Privately-owned Six08 Health, formerly known as East Meets West, is the first business taking part in the Targeted Redevelopment Incentive Program (TRIP). The new municipal tax relief program will aid in the construction of a private health facility at 608 5 Avenue South in the downtown core.

“The way that the program works is that right now, the building is assessed at just over $600,000 and so we receive those taxes today and what the incentive does is it basically frees the project for the next seven years,” said Andrew Malcolm, Lethbridge, Urban Revitalization Manager.

“Over that time, there will be a major investment done, which increases the assessed value, which would regularly mean that their taxes would go up immediately and then the city would be getting more tax dollars off that property, but what the program does is it freezes it based off the base assessment, so for the next seven years they are paying the same rate of taxes as if they never made an investment. Now, however, at the end of that seven-year period, the city will then get that full tax value for that eighth year and for every year going on past that.”

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This project has an estimated construction value of $4,850,000. The annual tax cancellation is +/- $88,000 for a total tax cancellation for the project at approximately $616,000.

TRIP is available for projects that have a minimum construction value of $1 million.

Dr. Sean Hantke, the CEO and Clinical Director of Six08 Health, said the cosmetic demolition phase has been completed. Now, the demolition is moving on to the structural side. Crews will be adding a second storey to the building.

“It will be about 18,000 square feet of team-based medical [services] with a unified, collaborative approach. It will include services, anywhere from massage, to chiropractic, to physiotherapy, traditional medicine, general medicine, specialty medicine, pharmacy – so it will be kind of your full, well-versed comprehensive care,” Hantke said on Tuesday morning, Oct. 15.

Inside some of the space set to be renovated (Lethbridge News Now)

As they currently operate at their East Meets West facility in south Lethbridge, Hantke said they offer acupuncture, massage, chiropractic, physiotherapy, naturopathic medicine and cosmetic laser services.

The expanded space will allow them to boost the amount of services they can provide.

“Within the new facility – we’ll be expanding more to the traditional services of dental, family medical, speciality medicine and pharmacy,” he noted.

In all, there will be 16 different services available, all with sub-components, leading to over 50 types of treatments being made available.

“This will benefit anyone from someone that’s suffered an injury to someone who’s looking to optimize their health from a proactive standpoint as well as young, old, middle-age, anyone that’s concerned about their health or having any health issues,” Hantke said.

He added that they staff about 30 people, but the new facility will see between 75 and 100 employees.

BOOST FOR DOWNTOWN

Malcom said the city believes this is an important move for the downtown core.

“It’s a big piece because we’ve seen a lot of very important public investment in terms of the new Park ‘N Ride, the 3rd Avenue project which is slated for construction to start next year and just a lot of work that the City and the Heart of Our City committee has put into the downtown over the last few years,” he said, adding that he believes this is first domino to fall and things will pick up quickly in downtown.

He said the city’s goal is to support businesses that are in Lethbridge and are looking to expand, as well as to attract new businesses and people who can call Lethbridge and the downtown core their home.

“We do have other interest in the [TRIP] program, and we’re hoping to have some more announcements coming shortly. It’s taken a little bit of time to get off the ground, but now we’ve recently, through an amendment with council last year, think ironed out a few more of the kinks and made it a bit more open. We’re really excited that hopefully more people take on this incentive.”

Malcom said part of encouraging established and new businesses to take advantage of TRIP is education about the program.

“We go out and meet with commercial realtors who are showing these spaces in the downtown, we meet with people that are looking to develop but having a successful project and somebody standing behind it with their local investment in the project says a lot and we’re hoping that this gets the ball rolling,” he said.

“The city’s put up money to say that it’s important, that it’s a vibrant place and now the public investment is starting to follow suit which I think reinforces that public spending on things that are important actually helps out and there’s a bigger game here in that the private investment is what we really want and the public investment is doing what it should and that’s spur confidence.”

More details on TRIP can be found via the City of Lethbridge’s website.