Hamilton Spectator
The Olympia Banquet Centre on Barton Street East is shuttered and listed for sale following a move earlier this year by the Business Development Bank of Canada to try to recover outstanding property taxes and mortgage payments totalling more than $1 million.
Larry Friday, the city’s director of taxation, said the city is owed about $240,000 dating from 2007, including the assessment from this year.
He said it’s a complicated situation because the BDC holds the mortgage on the property and as a federal agency, would normally recover all of the proceeds before other creditors.
However, the city and the BDC have worked out an arrangement, said Friday, to take the power of sale proceedings and share them proportionally, once it is sold.
The city would receive about 16 per cent of the purchase price, according to a report prepared in January for council.
The recently renovated building at 1162 Barton Street East is listed on mls.ca for $875,000. The sale also includes three other adjacent properties on Barton and Fraser Avenue.
“If we didn’t do this and a buyer would still have to pay the taxes owing, it makes it much harder to sell,” said Friday.
John Raffay, listed as a director of the numbered company that owned the Olympia, said he is working closely with the BDC and the city to find a buyer.
He said the Olympia was operated by his wife Carmela Ippolito and his mother, Mary.
The Olympia closed its doors in December 2011.
He said the banquet centre ran into problems when the Centre Mall across the street started its redevelopment. That construction, in effect, removed the possibility of additional spillover parking for customers.
“It was very difficult to accommodate customer requests,” he said, adding that the Olympia banquet centre only has 30 parking spots.
He said the business secured financing with the BDC in 2003-2004 “to assist us with (purchasing) extra parking.”
The company purchased the adjacent lots and tore down a commercial building to create more parking but was not able to transform the other lots to create enough parking.
Raffay is now the president of the Grand Olympia Banquet Centre on Barton Street East in Stoney Creek. His wife is listed as a director of that corporation, which is listed under a different numbered company.
The Grand Olympia was nominated last year by the Hamilton Chamber of Commerce for a large outstanding business achievement award and Raffay said it is not in any financial trouble, with more than 300 bookings this year alone and about 200 employees.
“We are doing really well here,” he said.
lmarr@thespec.com
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