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First Capital estimates it will cost $12.8 million to restore the building and make it commercially viable. Of that, First Capital says about $8.4 million will be spent on heritage preservation. The company wants the city to pay for half that restoration work. Without that funding, Huizinga says, First Capital won’t restore the building.

“Financially, it makes no sense to save it. The preference of any developer would be to knock it down and start fresh.”

The faux Bavarian schloss was designed in 1913 by Bernard Barthel, a Chicago architect who specialized in Germanic Revival breweries, for the Edmonton Malting and Brewing Company. The plant, taken over by Molson in 1958, is one of Edmonton’s most iconic buildings. It’s an important visual linchpin, connecting the explosion of new development along 104th Avenue with trendy 124th Street.

But $4.2 million? The city’s heritage reserve fund had a balance of $3 million in July. There are also several other major heritage restoration projects on the book. The city projects that by 2018, the heritage reserve fund will have just $2.4 million.

It’s a “large” request, says Robert Geldart, the city’s principal heritage planner. “We don’t have the money for this in our reserve fund.”

So Geldart and First Capital have a unique proposal. Instead of funding the project from the heritage reserve, they’re asking council to come up with separate funds in the city budget. And instead of asking for about $4.2 million up front, First Capital is asking for payments of $418,000 a year, staggered over 10 years. That would spread out the city’s financial pressures and guarantee that First Capital actually went through with the work.