Court approves Bedrock purchase of Stelco surplus lands

Bedrock Industries proposal to buy the former Stelco-owned steel production land was approved the Superior Court of Justice Monday afternoon.

Bedrock,the new owner of Stelco, submitted its purchasemotion to the monitor, Ernst & Young, last Friday.

"We've been dealing with this land thing since about Christmas, that's a long time working on this part of the deal," said Gary Howe, president of the United Steelworkers Local 1005.

Currently, the 818 acres ofland is held by a trust, LandCo, made up with provincial and labour representation. The land was held separately and not bought by Bedrock as part of its initial deal to buy the operation from U.S. Steel.

According to the public motion record, Bedrock proposed to purchase "all of the Stelco Leased Premises in Lake Erie and Hamilton," including an additional 480 acres of land that has not been leased in Hamilton.

Bedrock said in the motion that if the transaction goes through, it will be able to "improve its steel operations" to benefit not only theowners of the land, but "potentially benefit the communities in Hamilton, Nanticoke and Haldimand County."

The owners of the land are receiving a "vendor take back mortgage note" in exchange of the sale for $114.1 million, with a fixed interest rate of 8 per cent.

Howe told CBC News the land purchase would mean that retirees and employees will have more stability in their pensions and health care benefits.

"The mortgage payments are going towards pensions and benefit," he said. And if Stelco goes under, they're "the first in line to take the money back."

Hamilton mayor's disappointment

The day before court, City of Hamilton mayor Fred Eisenberger told CBC News he was surprised and disappointed to learn about the plans for selling the land.

He said the province's representative, Ed Clark, had assured the city that "they were going to consulting with us."

"None of this was translated to us at any point in time, and we were just informed that this acquisition is happening and is going to the courts," Eisenberger said.

Howe said while the land acquisition talks have been ongoing for a while, they couldn't tell the city.

"We were warned several times that we couldn't tell people what was going on because of insider trading," he said. "That's exactly why the city didn't find out."

On Monday afternoon, Stelco's stock price is $24.78, $0.78 more than the opening price of $24 last Friday morning.

Ed Clark was not available for comment.

Land use plans

A year ago, Eisenberger told CBC News about the city's 25-year-plan to turn the land into Toronto or Brooklyn Navy Pier-style waterfront. It would be a mix of commercial and industrial use, with creative offices, light industry, movie studios and green space.

However, how he's just hoping to sit down with Stelco to talk about their future plans for the land, hoping they are "in sync with what the city plans were."

Howe said Stelco hasn't decided what it will do with the land yet because of ongoing problems with U.S. tariffs on Canadian steel.

But if the company to undertake an "expansion of steelmaking process," they'll be in a better position to do so, he said.