Uptown Saint John should have a booming condo market, but it never has, even post 2020 hype for New Brunswick. It’s def not time to give up on dreams of getting some nicer high rise projects built when SJ is the third biggest port in Canada and one of the fastest growing container ports in North America… but we probably do need to get some serious outside investors to invest in SJ real estate for that to happen.
Lafford’s project for the South End is one of the most notable residential proposals for SJ from a non local developers in a long time… and they are only from as far away as Moncton.
Imagine the type of buildings we could see go up elsewhere around Uptown Saint John if some prime locations and vacant properties were sold to major property developers from elsewhere in Canada or around the world. The port is our gateway to the world, and puts Saint John, NB on the map… Surely, there must be a way to leverage that unique position to make connections with global property developers willing to invest in local projects here in Saint John.
We should be seeing much bigger proposals from our “new” governments (both provincially and federally). There’s federally and provincially owned property around Saint John that could be turned into really ambitious housing developments that actually show the electorate that they’re also funding some big solutions, instead of just funding more and more 3-6 storey boxes.
New Brunswickers receive mostly uninspiring updates from our provincial housing minister about dozens of units built here and there, or multi million dollar deals to make some units temporarily affordable in developments like 99 King. If I’m not mistaken, the province hasn’t funded the construction of a single publicly owned apartment tower over 10 storeys since this housing crisis began. I’m not sure how much SJ is on the radar of the federal housing minister, but as the former mayor of Canada’s biggest port city that very much “grew upwards”, maybe Hickey and Wayne Long can get minister Robertson, PM Carney, and Susan Holt to back
I understand the bulk of the housing we need is going to be 6 floors and below, or even 3 floors and below, but there’s still a lot of valid reasons to want to stimulate the growth of larger scale, high rise developments. Taller buildings reduce urban sprawl, and in some locations, can provide hundreds of new units of housing without the need to corresponding parking spots. Taller buildings will also just make our NB cities feel bigger, and be more welcoming to newcomers, especially building “up” is part of the strategy to eventually have a surplus of affordable rental units across the big 3 cities of NB.
The city has already put out their North End plan, and the province and Feds should step up and find ways to get that plan built, including pursuing private public partnerships and even fully publicly funded developments designed to solve the housing crisis in one of Canada’s oldest municipalities. This isn’t about trying to revive failed “towers in the park” strategies from decades ago, it’s about rebuilding this city into something great again, by building bigger, building bolder, and building now.
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