The Official Saint John, NB Project Thread

[cdnguys]

[DyAm00394]

Today is the groundbreaking for the new NB Museum expansion on Douglas Avenue.

“Construction phase begins on museum revitalization project
26 August 2024
SAINT JOHN (GNB) – The New Brunswick Museum entered the next phase of its Revitalize NBM project today with a groundbreaking ceremony at 277 Douglas Ave. in Saint John.

The construction phase involves partially rebuilding and expanding the museum, while maintaining its historical facade. The work is expected to take about 2½ years, with the reopening scheduled for 2027.

“This is an exciting day for all New Brunswick residents,” said Premier Blaine Higgs. “The revitalization of the museum will allow us to preserve and showcase our province’s natural history.”

The project is a collaboration involving the provincial and federal governments and the museum’s board of directors. The provincial government is contributing $58 million while the federal government is providing just under $50 million. The museum will also contribute through its ongoing capital campaign.

“The renovated and revitalized New Brunswick Museum, funded in part through the Green Infrastructure Stream of the Investing in Canada Infrastructure Program, will help preserve and highlight the province’s rich and diverse culture for generations to come,” said Saint John-Rothesay MP Wayne Long. “I am thrilled to be here for this groundbreaking ceremony and cannot wait to see the final product when all the renovations and construction are done.”

Long attended for federal Housing, Infrastructure and Communities Minister Sean Fraser.

“Our government is committed to the maintenance and preservation of the collection that tells the story of New Brunswick,” said Tourism, Heritage and Culture Minister Tammy Scott-Wallace. “Many important pieces of our history, culture and heritage will be commemorated in this building, and protected for generations to come.”

"The groundbreaking for the Revitalize NBM project is the next phase in the realization of a provincial museum all New Brunswickers can be proud of,” said museum board chair Tracy Clinch. “Our new home will be a community facility that embraces sustainability and innovation and embodies our commitment to preserving and celebrating New Brunswick's rich natural and cultural heritage.”

https://www2.gnb.ca/content/gnb/en/news/news_release.2024.08.0374.html

[EnvisionSaintJohn]

Originally Posted by thefishingnut

4 indoor rinks in the KV (you missed RNS, which is used for minor hockey) along with 2 outdoor surfaces. 5 indoor rinks in Saint John. Certainly there is some spillage back and forth of use, but I doubt it is significant enough into Saint John from the KV to be bothered with. Or are you so sure that Saint John residents don't also use rinks in the valley that this is a 1 way issue?

I don't pay attention to Moncton, but do they have the same discussions about putting non-resident tolls on bridges and streets from Riverview and Dieppe into Moncton? And non-resident recreation cards so that a 6 year old out skating with his friends can be properly charged?

If you want to fix the property tax situation in Saint John, then get the industrial property tax issue fixed. You're not in a bad financial situation because some kid from the KV goes skating at Harbour Station without being charged more than the kid from Millidgeville. You're in a bad financial situation because the Province screws over the city on the industrial tax base.

Ah right, of course Hogwarts of the Valley has their own ice rink

Comprehensive tax reform needs to happen, but that’s a separate issue.

It’s more of a KV people using SJ rinks situation than the other way around, and it’s definitely not a situation where Quispamsis, Rothesay, Grand Bay, etc are finding their municipalities coming under financial stress because they can’t afford to provide services to their residents, because so many people have left over the years. If it wasn’t for the windfall of tax revenue due to the post 2020 surge in people buying homes within the city of Saint John, the City might have gone bankrupt.

Just because the PC’s refuse to live up to their promise to enact municipal tax reforms that would allow cities to properly tax industrial, commercial, and vacant properties doesn’t mean there isn’t a vastly unequal situation going on between the city and bedroom communities.

Quispamsis contributes what, $750,000 a year to the city budget? Same with Rothesay. That’s not nearly enough to even help pay for KV residents use of SJ’s roads, let alone help pay for rink operations. The previous plan for recreation cards would have directly dealt with this issue, and only impacted families that actually use the rinks… and honestly, with how expensive recreational hockey and figure skating can be, the recreation fees would have been a drop in the bucket to those families, but actually make a big difference to the city budget. The city can’t legally put up tolls on the highway coming down in, but there’s nothing stopping them from putting an effective toll on rinks.

The one time payment of $60,000 from the hotels association back in 2019 has been more than exhausted by now and then some. Without any movement on the bedroom communities actually agreeing to help finance rink operations within the city, it’s time to re-implement the recreation card plan. There’s very few other options for the city to actually get any revenue out of valley residents. The city never should have given up the recreation card plan in the fist place, and I’m not sure how the one time payment of $60,000 stopped the entire plan. Anyone have any insight, was it covid? Or was it simply that many of the highest paid bureaucrats in the most influential positions at City Hall happen to be valley residents?

[EnvisionSaintJohn]

Originally Posted by DyAm00394

Today is the groundbreaking for the new NB Museum expansion on Douglas Avenue.



https://www2.gnb.ca/content/gnb/en/news/news_release.2024.08.0374.html

It’s going to be a great project. Thought it was a bit much that the mayor thanked Higgs for selecting Saint John mentioning stiff competition from Fredericton and Moncton…

More like thanks for doing the right thing in spite of Higgs’s veiled threats to relocate the oldest museum in Canada to another city in NB for completely political, arbitrary reasons. It would be great if the NB Museum had more travelling exhibits and found more ways to include the whole province in their endeavours , but it was ridiculous to even suggest the location of the oldest museum of Canada be moved.

Mayor Reardon seems to be a nice enough lady, but she isn’t really the tenacious advocate for this city that we need as mayor. I’m not saying she needed to call Higgs out at this press conference, but that comment was just straight up ridiculous. Higgs’s visible reaction to her comment, though, spoke volumes. It’s pretty sad that the first premier from the SJ region since the 1930’s is such an anti Saint John premier. We shouldn’t feel lucky or grateful that the SJ got to keep the museum… esp not when the previous government committed $120 million to build a brand new museum on the waterfront that Higgs saw fit to cancel. We should feel annoyed it’s taken the province this long to do something while the Market Square and Douglas Avenue locations had serious issues gone unaddressed for far too long.

I think expanding and updating Douglas Avenue site was the best option, but there’s still an opportunity for an exhibition site uptown. There’s no school going into the Market Square museum location anymore, it wouldn’t be crazy to do a scaled down exhibition location there with like half the space. Especially not if the rest of the property could be sold and redeveloped into something else that we really need Uptown, like housing, or a cinema.

[DyAm00394]

Originally Posted by DyAm00394

Today is the groundbreaking for the new NB Museum expansion on Douglas Avenue.



https://www2.gnb.ca/content/gnb/en/news/news_release.2024.08.0374.html

I see in a new Telegraph Journal article about this, apparently they are also looking for a new temporary home for the boutique and are adding an exhibition space and programming to the boutique. Apparently the current space in Brunswick Square is no longer a good location due to “access issues”.

”As the revitalized building won’t be open until 2027, the New Brunswick Museum now plans to find a new temporary home for its boutique to allow for exhibition space and programming, according to Brent Suttie, the museum’s chief operating officer and director of research.

“We’re hopeful that by next summer, when cruise ship season starts again, that we will have something like that in place,” said Suttie, who added there were “access issues” this summer with the boutique’s current Brunswick Square location”.

[sailor734]

I know nothing about the mechanics or financial aspects of development but I'm curious. What would the price need to be for the 46 acre Irving parcel beside Tucker Park to make a development work? (Currently 6.2m or about 125k/acre)

Given the beach and 1800feet of waterfrontage I would think you could do a combo of lowrise condo buildings, maybe townhouses, garden homes or small detached ranch style houses on narrow 60-80 ft lots, 6-8 big waterfront lots and still have room for a common beach like K Park has.

I'm told the house needs a lot of deferred maintenance addressed so if the numbers worked might it be a teardown?

[OliverD]

Originally Posted by sailor734

I know nothing about the mechanics or financial aspects of development but I'm curious. What would the price need to be for the 46 acre Irving parcel beside Tucker Park to make a development work? (Currently 6.2m or about 125k/acre)

Given the beach and 1800feet of waterfrontage I would think you could do a combo of lowrise condo buildings, maybe townhouses, garden homes or small detached ranch style houses on narrow 60-80 ft lots, 6-8 big waterfront lots and still have room for a common beach like K Park has.

I'm told the house needs a lot of deferred maintenance addressed so if the numbers worked might it be a teardown?

At $6.2M for completely unserviced land my guess would be that you'd need to build around 500 units for it to make sense.

[TitleRequired]

Originally Posted by sailor734

I know nothing about the mechanics or financial aspects of development but I'm curious. What would the price need to be for the 46 acre Irving parcel beside Tucker Park to make a development work? (Currently 6.2m or about 125k/acre)

Given the beach and 1800feet of waterfrontage I would think you could do a combo of lowrise condo buildings, maybe townhouses, garden homes or small detached ranch style houses on narrow 60-80 ft lots, 6-8 big waterfront lots and still have room for a common beach like K Park has.

I'm told the house needs a lot of deferred maintenance addressed so if the numbers worked might it be a teardown?

That would make sense. The property provides 0$ in tax revenue currently due to the charity occupancy.

That would be an epic improvement in taxable revenue for the property.

[adamuptownsj]

Originally Posted by sailor734

I know nothing about the mechanics or financial aspects of development but I'm curious. What would the price need to be for the 46 acre Irving parcel beside Tucker Park to make a development work? (Currently 6.2m or about 125k/acre)

Given the beach and 1800feet of waterfrontage I would think you could do a combo of lowrise condo buildings, maybe townhouses, garden homes or small detached ranch style houses on narrow 60-80 ft lots, 6-8 big waterfront lots and still have room for a common beach like K Park has.

I'm told the house needs a lot of deferred maintenance addressed so if the numbers worked might it be a teardown?

You'd need a high end developer with a luxury vision and deep pockets. Would probably need a new pumping station too. Drury Cove has taken ages and still isn't close to being fully built out.

Its taxed, presumably non-Irving-owned, inland counterpart would make a good subdivision, too. Connect Sandy Point to Kennebecasis. Dry and flat. Fairly elevated so it would have great views. Would unlock some parcels to its north as well. Proximity to university and hospital. Any developer here would be entirely reasonable in asking for some government contribution, for at least roadwork, as a connector road would have some pretty substantial benefits.

I've always wondered about this great, if rocky, parcel nearby too. With a sliver of the university-owned land between it and Tucker Park Road, it would be a great location for an apartment building. To its south, this parcel could be anything.

[sailor734]

Originally Posted by adamuptownsj

You'd need a high end developer with a luxury vision and deep pockets. Would probably need a new pumping station too. Drury Cove has taken ages and still isn't close to being fully built out.

Its taxed, presumably non-Irving-owned, inland counterpart would make a good subdivision, too. Connect Sandy Point to Kennebecasis. Dry and flat. Fairly elevated so it would have great views. Would unlock some parcels to its north as well. Proximity to university and hospital. Any developer here would be entirely reasonable in asking for some government contribution, for at least roadwork, as a connector road would have some pretty substantial benefits.

I've always wondered about this great, if rocky, parcel nearby too. With a sliver of the university-owned land between it and Tucker Park Road, it would be a great location for an apartment building. To its south, this parcel could be anything.

I'm not sure the parcel across K Drive isn't (or at least wasn't) owned by Ken Irving as well. I know there was an entrance to a cleared area where their groundskeeper used to dump brush, garden waste etc etc You'd often see him crossing K Drive in a John Deer utility vehicle with a loaded trailer on behind.

[darkharbour]

Kenneth gave the house and riverfrontage to the Lake Ontario Waterkeeper a decade ago. but the parcel identified as "inland counterpart" is currently listed as under Irving Oil Limited's ownership according to the land registry.

[sailor734]

Yes, I suspect all that land was Irving owned dating back to when Arthur and Joan's house was there on the sharp bend in the 60's -70's. I can remember being around the yacht club as a teenager in the 70's when he had the KJAJ moored out front. The land where Arthur's house used to be was on MLS earlier this year but now it's not, although SNB isn't showing a sale. Wonder what's up with that?

That would be another prime site for a high end low rise condo building.

[CharlotteSJ]

Originally Posted by EnvisionSaintJohn

...
Especially not if the rest of the property could be sold and redeveloped into something else that we really need Uptown, like housing, or a cinema.

or a Casino.
Market Square would be an ideal spot, considering the space, waterfront location, Trade and Convention Centre and a hotel that is attached/or next door.
Casinos aren't just for gambling, but food and concerts are attractions to them too.

[bridgeoftea]

Originally Posted by CharlotteSJ

or a Casino.
Market Square would be an ideal spot, considering the space, waterfront location, Trade and Convention Centre and a hotel that is attached/or next door.
Casinos aren't just for gambling, but food and concerts are attractions to them too.

My idea for a Casino would be either in the spot of the old substation / parking long right along the harbour passage. Where you could connect an underground path to the convention center / harbour station.

OR

Put it in the empty lot on the corner of city road / sewell street. Link it up with the arena, for any events going on there you could run promotions. Spend $100 at the casino and get free sea dog tickets with a free beer included. Or book a night stay at the hotel and get discounted cirque du solei tickets etc. Make sure you have a pedway connected for the winter, so if it's -20 outside, you can walk from your hotel room in the casino, to the arena and then down to market square after.

With the Avenir center / Casino NB - a lot of the concerts that Saint John used to attract are now moved up to there.

[DyAm00394]

New project card posted on CCD Canada:

"SOLAR GENERATION FACILITY, SAINT JOHN - SAINT JOHN, NB
NEW SOLAR GENERATION FACILITY

Starting Date (estimated): 2025-08
Location: SAINT JOHN (NB)
Size: $18,450,000.00
Stage: 2-Planning
Published: 2024-08-28
Last Update: 2024-08-28

Work type: New construction
Sector: Private
Category: 1-Industrial
Subcategorie: 1P-Power Production
Disciplines: Architecture, Civil, Electricity, Environment, Equipment, HVAC, Instrumentation, Building mechanic, Industrial mechanic, Structural, Other

Description:
NEW SOLAR GENERATION FACILITY

Located in Saint John, this project estimated at $18 450 000 is in the preliminary stage. The design-build contractor should be announced in October 2024. The project is slated to be completed in 2026. Works concern the construction of an industrial project for a solar generation facility".

[TitleRequired]

Originally Posted by DyAm00394

New project card posted on CCD Canada:

Where would one go to put this in a non fog location

[darkharbour]

Originally Posted by TitleRequired

Where would one go to put this in a non fog location

There is a lot of the city that gets sunlight. I live in the North End and have solar on my rooftop and it does just fine. As long as you avoid the most ocean-adjacent areas, it shouldn't be much of an issue, and certainly anyone investing this much will model weather into the ROI based on conditions before going ahead.

[DyAm00394]

Originally Posted by TitleRequired

Where would one go to put this in a non fog location

When you look online it says it's a myth that solar panels only perform well in perfect weather conditions. "Whether it's fog, rain, or even a combination of both, solar panels can still generate electricity and contribute to significant savings on monthly electricity bills". Other websites say: "Today, the majority of solar panels work at around 50% efficiency during foggy conditions.

[TitleRequired]

Originally Posted by DyAm00394

When you look online it says it's a myth that solar panels only perform well in perfect weather conditions. "Whether it's fog, rain, or even a combination of both, solar panels can still generate electricity and contribute to significant savings on monthly electricity bills". Other websites say: "Today, the majority of solar panels work at around 50% efficiency during foggy conditions.

How much is a 1% increase in solar insolation on the lifecycle revenue of the solar array?

An 18M$ project. 20 year lifecycle. Solar insolation foggy or clear. 45 degree North. Current and changing climate. Snow.

Siting these projects is quite different than someone willing to absorbe an opportunity cost for virtue signaling hippy points.

[EnvisionSaintJohn]

There’s now a formal written petition against Brent Harris’s terrible proposal for the Belyea. It’s too bad the people of that neighbourhood didn’t have this sort of response before the city voted to shut down the arena, but made it clear they intended to shut down one rink. The rink could have possibly been saved.

The city's study that was used to justify closing the Arena was completely full of crap

I know many have said to not put energy into this, and that the city won’t go with Bent’s plan, but would anyone really be that surprised if the city did try to go with it? Council will vote on the recommendations given to them from city staff, and the city staff is full of KV residents in key leadership positions, so it shouldn’t exactly shock anyone if they were to recommend this terrible plan from Brent Harris, as many city workers don’t live in the neighbourhood or even the city itself for that matter .

Good to see West Siders stand up for their neighbourhood. It’s good to see it’s not just Rothesay that has people that care enough to do something about bad plans that could impact their community, just a little sad they couldn’t have done more back in late 2019 when the city first floated the idea of shutting down arenas in the first place.

To be fair to them, though, the city did make their decision to shut down the Belyea in the middle of 2020, when people had other things on their mind to say the least. Easily the dumbest, most infuriating thing the city has done regarding this neighbourhood since I moved here… until they came up with the idea to turn the Belyea Arena into a homeless shelter. That homeless shelter idea, btw, was the brainchild of a city worker who lives in Hampton… a small bedroom community that’s currently building a brand new rink for their community.