Developers aim to create vibrant new communities in old buildings

CBC

2 days ago

Claire Taylor just moved to Saint John to get ready for her first year at the University of New Brunswick this fall, and she has the exuberance that comes with new experiences.
It's her first time away from Newfoundland and Labrador, and she already loves Saint John.
"Holy cow, I can see the sun," she said about a recent clear day. "It's beautiful here."
She's good-humoured about the fog, which she encountered her first night in town.
"All the cars are going slow, and I'm like guys, I'm a bayman. Follow me, and I got out in front of them all. I'm good at driving in fog."
She also found a job right away. The one thing that slowed her down was finding an apartment.
" Nothing was in the price range," she said. 'Nothing was a good fit."
Then she and her boyfriend found a place near St. Joseph's Hospital, in a renovated, 25-unit building that's phase one of the Hospital Hill Development.
The average rent is $1,600, including heat, lights and parking. It also has new appliances.
"This is beautiful and the views are amazing," Taylor said. "It's like the best thing that's ever happened to me."
WATCH | 'This is the perfect, perfect price':
How these developers are resurrecting old buildings
4 hours ago
Duration 4:13
Developers Michael Wowchuk and Deanna Adams see opportunities in converting former office buildings and churches into apartments for the 'missing middle' rental market in Saint John.
All this in a three-storey building that until recently sat empty, beside a vacant site once home to the city's largest hospital. It used to be Red Cross offices, then administration offices for the Catholic church Diocese of Saint John.
"I just kind of fell upon this place," developer Michael Wowchuk said. "I just noticed it was for sale and I'm like, 'Why isn't anyone buying this site?'"
To address housing shortages, local developers are doing a lot of new builds in the city centre. Others, like Wowchuk, are repurposing and renovating existing buildings no longer occupied.
"These are challenging times," he said. "The top end of the market is, I would say, saturated. For this area, we want to look at [what's] affordable, and we want to look at addressing the 'missing middle,' as I call it, people who are working but they can't afford a home, they can't afford $2,000-plus a month in rent."
He said creating housing in unlikely spaces can be cheaper than building new, and the savings can mean lower rents.
"Buying an existing building helped us because we already had the bones, we already had the structure," he said. "All we had to do was [demolish the inside] and then rebuild."
Wowchuk originally thought his target market would be seniors because St. Joseph's was nearby. He still plans to set aside five subsidized units for seniors, with an office in the building for their support workers.
But now that the units are for rent, it's mostly young people like Taylor showing interest.
"One of the mainstay demands is 20-year-olds looking for a place to live, and it's close to uptown," he said. "That's how it works, right? You pivot with the market. There will still be seniors here and maybe it's going to be half-and-half, but that younger demographic really wanted it."
In the north end, Ontario-based developer Deanna Adams recently received approval for a zoning change that would allow her to turn a former church into apartments.
The three-storey wood structure operated as a church for more than 100 years. It was a hub of community activity, a spirit Adams wanted to honour.
"Although that original purpose may no longer be true or valid in today's world, I'd like to find a way to bring them back to life and make them relevant again," Adams said.
"The satisfaction that you get from seeing a building that looked like it was in despair come back to life and see people living in it and being happy and proud about where they're living … is very rewarding and addictive."
Adams said the building will have up to 18 apartments — a mix of bachelor, one-bedroom and two-bedroom units — after renovations and a three-storey addition.
"When I walked into the church, I saw an amazing structure, a clear-span structure. There's no support structure within. … What it means is that it was well built from the beginning. There are no sags in the floors, no creeks, no squeaks. It's solid."
There are advantages to working with a wood structure over stone or brick, she said. It's easier to move windows, which you need to do when converting a building from a church to apartments. It's also easier to find local labourers with experience working on wood structures.
Whether it's a new build or a renovated older building, renters like Bobola Adanikan appreciate the sense of "newness" about the places.
Adanikin, who moved to Saint John from Nigeria two years ago to attend New Brunswick Community College, recently moved into Wowchuk's building and likes the renovations and the new appliances.
He also likes the tech features. Wowchuk is going to enable facial recognition technology to gain entry to the building, for those who want that feature. In partnership with NBCC and the Université de Moncton, Wowchuk is developing a robot that will carry garbage from people's apartments for disposal and deliver packages to a tenant's door.
"The security, the fresh paint, there's this feeling of peace in this building," Adanikin said.
Like Adams, Wowchuk was partly inspired by the idea of reanimating what was once a hub of activity. The old Saint John General Hospital had a commanding presence on a hill overlooking the Mount Pleasant and Rockwood Park areas.
"Frankly, I was not really pleased with what the landscape had turned into along the hill," he said. "There was no great building that replaced the old General."
The Hospital Hill Development, will eventually include two more buildings and a landscaped pedestrian walkway and green space to connect all three.