List of potential sites for new Saint John City Hall gets smaller
A real state firm has whittled down a list of 16 properties in contention for becoming the next home of Saint John city hall.
The short list will be narrowed again by July 10, when city council will be given the firm's first and second picks to consider, said Bill MacAvoy, managing director of real estate brokerage Cushman and Wakefield Atlantic.
"That recommendation will have both a preferred, or a first-place candidate, but also a backup or an alternate," said MacAvoy, who would not say reveal how many properties are on the short list now.
If council agrees to pursue the firm's number one recommendation, and if the ensuing due diligence on the deal proceeds without incident, all staff at City Hall could be relocated somewhere in the uptown core by September 2018.
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It has already been decided that a certain portion of city staff and services will occupy about 3,000 square feet of vacant space in the City Market Tower.
That leaves the question of where to find the 36,000 or so square feet needed for everyone else.
"That's a very large occupier in the city of Saint John," said MacAvoy.
He said the total office market space available in the area would be about 2 million square feet.
"So on a percentage basis, that's a material tenant," MacAvoy said of the city.
"We [expected] the people who submitted in the early stages and the people who continue to negotiate would be very aggressive to secure a tenant of this magnitude and so far, our hypothesis is correct."
MacAvoy would not identify any of the properties proposed for sale or lease to the city, but he said city hall favoured locations that were highly visible and accessible, preferably at street level and with public parking.
Former Woolworth's on offer
Saint John lawyer Rod Gillis, who owns 44,000 square feet at the top of King Street in what was once Woolworth's, said he proposed a 10-year lease at a cost of less than $175,000 per year.
"The rent and improvement would actually be much less than the annual rent paid by the city now," Gillis wrote in an email in response to a CBC News inquiry.
The city budgeted $1.87 million for City Hall in 2016 and $2.13 million for 2017.
"In fact, the operating budget would only be the ground rent and the interest rate on the improvements," wrote Gillis.
"The location being adjacent to the City Market I thought was a positive, as well as being on King Square would be good for the City. ... In addition it would show another development on King Square and positive growth for the City. ... Otherwise with no tenants in sight, no one would develop the site on speculation given the economic climate in uptown Saint John."
Lease can be terminated
On May 1, 2006, the city entered into a 15-year-lease for its current space near the foot of King Street, at 15 Market Square, to accommodate 140 employees.
The deal contained an option to terminate the lease any time after April 30, 2016, with 12 months' written notice.
That lease includes nearly 70,000 square feet in the basement, council chambers, as well as floors 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 14. There are 56 parking spaces.
The building is owned by a numbered New Brunswick company and Se-Fish Associates Limited, which has a registered office in Fredericton.
The lessors included K. Rai Sahi, chair and chief executive officer of Morguard Corp. and CEO of ClubLink, Canada's largest owner and operator of member golf clubs.
Sahi was ranked by Canadian Business Magazine as one of Canada's richest people in 2017 with a net worth of more than $2 billion.
Kostiner, a businessman, died in February.
