The nearly 140-year-old historic former Bank of New Brunswick in uptown Saint John is getting a new lease on life after sitting on the market for nine years.
Rob Lovett and Courtney Sherlock from Halifax have bought the building and see the building as a great long-term investment. We’re told by their real estate agent Jason Stephen that they are going to repurpose the building for multi-use, both commercial and residential, and they’re looking for professional tenants.
Stephanie Turner of Partners Global tells CHSJ News they had a couple of offers over the years that failed to close for various reasons.
“It has been for sale for a very long time, and part of the challenge of the building is that it was purpose built for a bank and the floor plans are not typical for a commercial building so repurposing it has its challenges,” Turner says.
While the purchase price hasn’t been disclosed, it was first listed back in 2008 for more than $1.2-million and in 2015 was reduced to $749,000. CHSJ News has also reached out to get more information on the plans for the building from the buyers.
Turner says there are some vacancies in the building including the former Alley Gria space along with the ground floor space, which was formerly the nightclub Pillars.
“There has been quite a bit of interest in leasing those spaces over the years but the past owner, the Arc’f, were hesitant to give anybody long term leases because they didn’t want to tie those spaces up in the event that a buyer wanted to redevelop the property. So those spaces have kind of been in limbo for a while,” says Turner.
“Now I think we will see activity in those empty spaces.”
