After sitting empty for two decades, the former St. Vincent’s High School building has been sold.
Service New Brunswick records show Fredericton-based City Line Holdings Ltd. — the same company that bought a former west side school last month — purchased the property on Friday for $700,000.
Jason Stephen, the seller’s real estate agent, wouldn’t confirm the name of the buyer but said the plan is to turn the former school into residential units.
Stephen said the designs aren’t final — nor the number of units — but he said there are “going to be some spacious units in there.” He said the idea is to turn the gymnasium into multi-level units.
Former all-girls Catholic school in Saint John sold
Featured VideoMore than 20 years after it shut its doors, the former St. Vincent’s High School building has been sold to a developer, who plans to turn it into apartments.
St. Vincent’s High School first opened in 1919 as a boys’ school before becoming a Catholic girls’ school in 1954. It continued to operate as an all-girls’ school until it closed in 2002. The building has been vacant ever since.
A decade ago, a non-profit group tried to transform the old school into apartments and a daycare.
In 2017, they even invited alumni of the Cliff Street school to tour the building. Tape on the floor of a classroom helped illustrate how a two-bedroom apartment would be laid out — even the toilet and bathtub were outlined on the floor.
Fifty-eight apartments were planned, along with a daycare that could accommodate 60 infants and pre-school children.
Stephen said he got involved in the project about 600 days ago.
After so many false starts for the property over the last two decades, Stephen called it one of the proudest-but-challenging sales in his career.
Real estate agent Jason Stephen declined to name the buyer but said the plan is to convert the building into residential units, including multi-level apartments. (Roger Cosman/CBC)
“It’s very exciting for this street,” he said, standing outside the building on Monday afternoon. “I think it’s going to redevelop and renew some energy back into the street.”
Although it has some “issues” given its age, Stephen said the building is structurally sound and has a lot of potential and “character.”
“You look at the marble staircases — even though the inside’s not in great shape, they held out over time.”
City Coun. David Hickey, who lives in Waterloo Village where the former school is located, is pleased with the sale and what it potentially means for the area.
“It’s transformative for the community,” Hickey said.
“This news shows that there’s some new vision taking shape in Waterloo Village. It shows that people are believing and seeing the potential that this community has.”
St. Vincent’s High School opened in 1919 and closed in 2002. It has been vacant ever since. (Roger Cosman/CBC)
Hickey said he spoke with the developer on Monday afternoon and confirmed the plan is to develop the property into residential units.
He said the plan is to build roughly 50 units.
St. Patrick’s School sat empty on the west side of Saint John for almost a decade before City Line Holdings bought it on Oct. 5 for $745,000.
Hickey said it’s good news for the city that two long-vacant schools, in “pretty dense neighbourhoods in our community,” are finally being developed.
In 2017, a non-profit group planned to develop the former school into 58 apartment units and a daycare, but that plan fell through. (Comeau MacKenzie Architecture)
He said there’s “a lot of community hope tied up in these projects — as well as development potential. So we really want to see a successful outcome here.”
Together with an unrelated development slated to start going up in the next few weeks on the Cliff Street property adjacent to St. Vincent’s, Hickey is hopeful for community revitalization.
“Things are looking up in Waterloo Village,” where they have been “on the front lines” of the housing and mental health crises, he said.
“We’ve seen what 200-plus people living on the street looks like because we’re the neighborhood that I think is seeing the most of it.”
Residential development, he said, “says to me and my neighbours that there is potential for this community.”
CBC tried contacting the president of City Line Holdings, but he has not responded to a request for an interview.
TORONTO – One expert predicts Ottawa‘s changes to mortgage rules will help spur demand among potential homebuyers but says policies aimed at driving new supply are needed to address the “core issues” facing the market.
The federal government’s changes, set to come into force mid-December, include a higher price cap for insured mortgages to allow more people to qualify for a mortgage with less than a 20 per cent down payment.
The government will also expand its 30-year mortgage amortization to include first-time homebuyers buying any type of home, as well as anybody buying a newly built home.
CIBC Capital Markets deputy chief economist Benjamin Tal calls it a “significant” move likely to accelerate the recovery of the housing market, a process already underway as interest rates have begun to fall.
However, he says in a note that policymakers should aim to “prevent that from becoming too much of a good thing” through policies geared toward the supply side.
Tal says the main issue is the lack of supply available to respond to Canada’s rapidly increasing population, particularly in major cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17,2024.
OTTAWA – The Canadian Real Estate Association says the number of homes sold in August fell compared with a year ago as the market remained largely stuck in a holding pattern despite borrowing costs beginning to come down.
The association says the number of homes sold in August fell 2.1 per cent compared with the same month last year.
On a seasonally adjusted month-over-month basis, national home sales edged up 1.3 per cent from July.
CREA senior economist Shaun Cathcart says that with forecasts of lower interest rates throughout the rest of this year and into 2025, “it makes sense that prospective buyers might continue to hold off for improved affordability, especially since prices are still well behaved in most of the country.”
The national average sale price for August amounted to $649,100, a 0.1 per cent increase compared with a year earlier.
The number of newly listed properties was up 1.1 per cent month-over-month.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
MONTREAL – Two Quebec real estate brokers are facing fines and years-long suspensions for submitting bogus offers on homes to drive up prices during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Christine Girouard has been suspended for 14 years and her business partner, Jonathan Dauphinais-Fortin, has been suspended for nine years after Quebec’s authority of real estate brokerage found they used fake bids to get buyers to raise their offers.
Girouard is a well-known broker who previously starred on a Quebec reality show that follows top real estate agents in the province.
She is facing a fine of $50,000, while Dauphinais-Fortin has been fined $10,000.
The two brokers were suspended in May 2023 after La Presse published an article about their practices.
One buyer ended up paying $40,000 more than his initial offer in 2022 after Girouard and Dauphinais-Fortin concocted a second bid on the house he wanted to buy.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
