Visitors Guide
Investors in St. John’s will get a second chance Tuesday to bid on a downtown office building. The former Bank of Nova Scotia building on Water Street is on the block for unpaid municipal taxes totaling more than $800,000.00. There were no takers two weeks ago, in part because the building’s value is assessed at approximately $500,000.00.
Scott Cluney, Executive Director of the Downtown Development Commission, says since the first auction, calls have been coming in. “The first question is: ‘what about the building on the corner of Beck’s Cove and Water Street, wondering what the status is, is it for sale, is it on the market, what’s going on with it?’” “So I think based upon that and the people who kind of showed some interest a couple of weeks back, this building will definitely go.”
Cluney says while nobody’s declaring that want to buy it, business people on Water Street have been talking about the building’s potential uses. “Redevelopment for office space, perhaps even retail, maybe even commercial/residential-type stuff,” he says. Cluney says the property’s assessed value of is not out of line with other Water Street sites.
Councilor Shannie Duff, chair of the council’s heritage committee, is hearing similar interest. The building is next door to the O’Dwyer block and the Murray Premises. “It seems to me it would lend itself to a number of quite interesting adaptive uses, and in fact right now there’s a fairly high level of interest.” She says.
Duff says she’d love to see the building reconstructed to reflect the adjoining O’Dwyer block, but she admits that would be “dreaming in Technicolor.”
CBC Radio, Wednesday March 16, 2004. Fred Armstrong.
