Colliers International chosen to run and market troubled Global Transportation Hub

As of Oct. 1, 2019, the troubled Global Transportation Hub will be managed by a well-known private commercial developer, according to a news release posted on the website for the Regina inland port.

Following a request for proposal issued in March, a seven-person committee chose Colliers International to run and market the GTH, a publicly owned Crown corporation. 

"Colliers International was the highest ranked proponent from a short list of qualified companies," the news release said, noting that 50 vendors downloaded the document package and nine made onsite visits to the GTH website.

The organization is deep in debt, hasn't sold any land for about three years and was embroiled in a land scandal that was under RCMP investigation for more than a year. 

• 20 unanswered questions about the GTH land deal
• No charges laid in GTH land deal investigation: RCMP

Last July, as that investigation wrapped up, concluding no crime had been committed, Don Morgan — the Saskatchewan government minister responsible for the GTH — expressed regret that the government had gotten into the transportation hub business in the first place. 

"In retrospect, it's probably not a business that government should have been involved in. But we are, and we have to deal with it," Morgan said. He announced that the government planned to divest itself of the inland port.

However, over the next few months the government discovered no one wanted to buy it. 

"As no offers nor expressed interests were received during the remainder of calendar year 2018, the preferred course of action was for the routine management of the GTH to be responsibly divested to a third party," explained Matt Schroeder, the acting CEO of the Global Transportation Hub, in a memo released on the organization's website on Wednesday.

In the news release, Schroeder says Colliers is a good choice as it is "a proven leader in industrial land sales, marketing and property management and, in this case, presented the best value option for taxpayers."  

The news release quotes Colliers' managing director for Saskatchewan, Richard Jankowski, as saying "we believe in the potential for the GTH to become a major economic stimulus for Saskatchewan." 

The news release says Colliers will conduct its business "under the direction and authority of a board of directors that will continue to oversee land sales, financial performance and regulatory activities." 

The release doesn't outline the structure of the new board, noting it has yet to be finalized. 

The GTH has released many of the documents related to the selection process on its website "to provide insight to those interested in the rigour and control involved in the process."