[Moncton] Downtown Developments

[Good2go]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

There is a rumour out there that the company that's consolidating these properties is Commercial Properties Limited (an Irving company).

http://www.commercial-properties.ca

This gives me some hope that there might be something interesting destined for this site..........

Commercial Properties also bought the NBTel parking lot and turned it into... an expensive dirt parking lot, operating under their ComPark brand.

https://www.compark.ca/

They also operate the City Hall parking lot.

[MonctonRad]

Well that's (potentially) discouraging.......

[NBNYer]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Well that's (potentially) discouraging.......

Would city hall still allow the flattening of half a city block in the core for a dirt parking lot?

[MonctonRad]

Therein lies the question........

[JHikka]

It would be classic if they bought the properties and demolished them quick in order to cash in on Events Centre patrons via parking.

They own and operate enough urban office buildings in Saint John that i'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt in assuming that they have a build eventually planned. Somerset Place in Saint John, despite being slightly suburban, was a pretty nice build by them.

[lirette]

Article on Castle Manor. They plan on renting some units through AIRBNB. I think the most interesting thing here is the interior photos. They did an amazing job.

http://huddle.today/inside-the-moncton-castle-that-now-has-condos-for-rent-and-airbnb/

[Scarface]

Originally Posted by lirette

Article on Castle Manor. They plan on renting some units through AIRBNB. I think the most interesting thing here is the interior photos. They did an amazing job.

http://huddle.today/inside-the-moncton-castle-that-now-has-condos-for-rent-and-airbnb/

They did do an amazing job. If they do rent them on AirBnB they should thread lightly as it seems a lot of cities have placed strict guidelines to keep things like what happen in Toronto, and also in Calgary, and Vancouver from happening.

[lirette]

Originally Posted by Scarface

They did do an amazing job. If they do rent them on AirBnB they should thread lightly as it seems a lot of cities have placed strict guidelines to keep things like what happen in Toronto, and also in Calgary, and Vancouver from happening.

While Moncton certainly could use its share of affordable housing the rental market isn't comparable to those citys at the moment. A crackdown in AirBnB make sense in a place like New York when rent for a studio apartment in manhattan is $4000 per month.

Hard to ask for much more for a cost of living here. You can buy a reasonable house in Moncton or Riverview for 100000. I see these more as specialty lodging. A corporate traveler looking for somewhere for a long term stay might find this type of rental appealing.

There is a point to be made though about having a property that almost functions like hotel mixed in with folks who are living there permanently. Your leased tenants can start to get upset so hopefully they have a strategy there.

[Good2go]

They even blocked off the new empty lot.

[Scarface]

Originally Posted by Good2go

They even blocked off the new empty lot.

that explains the truck that was going down the street with those concrete barricades. Also it looks like a might be a parking lot as people believe at least for this year maybe 2. No plans seen to have been brought forth for approval.

[flyer99]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Apparently Castle Manor is now an apartment development. Due to slow sales, the owner has decided to convert the building to apartments rather than condos.

Condos continue to be a housing concept difficult for Monctonians to wrap their head around. The idea of owning your unit but having to pay shared condo expenses on top of that seems to be difficult for locals to comprehend. Most people think in terms of black and white (own or rent), not this grey mushy-middle.

Home ownership continues to be a cheap alternative in Moncton. With low home ownership costs, this stifles the condo market and this in turn slows downtown redevelopment, as most developers prefer building condos over apartments.

I don't know when this particular worm will turn, but until it does, downtown redevelopment will remain sluggish........

I can attest to this. I was inquiring about 55 Queen St. The condos there weren't selling all that well and they made more into apartments. However, condo owners have indoor parking whereas apartment dwellers have to park outside. I could never understand, with the number of high end apartments going up in the city, why the owners of 55 Queen St. force their apartment renters to park outside. Has anyone looked at the monthly apartment rental prices for that building? That will discourage a lot of potential renters.

[flyer99]

Originally Posted by OliverD

Does Moncton have a bylaw in place that prevents landowners from tearing down downtown buildings to turn them into surface parking?

I live downtown and a few older homes have been demolished. Curiously, I inquired of the director that looks after bylaws asking if the new surface lots created could be rented out for parking. He told me in no uncertain terms that this is NOT allowed. In fact the owners of one newly created lot near me put up a "home made" sign promoting the lot for parking. I mentioned this to the bylaw director. He said he would drive by and look. Within two days the sign was taken down and nobody parks there.

[Sunnybrae]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

According to Mayor Dawn Arnold's FB page, city council has just voted to reverse the addition of bike lanes and a centre turning lane on the west end of Mountain Road. The traffic pattern will revert to four lane!!

I'm shocked that city council voted to approve this (although I do know that there was some confusion amongst drivers over the new configuration and some near miss accidents).

It will be a mess covering up all those new lane markings and repainting the road for four lane traffic.........

I have no idea how many cyclists were out that way but I do know west Main should have been changed to a center turn lane from Vaughan Harvey to Milner. It's scary to see a cyclist on that stretch of road when four cars and a bike are converging at the same time.

[MonctonBoy]

Originally Posted by flyer99

I can attest to this. I was inquiring about 55 Queen St. The condos there weren't selling all that well and they made more into apartments. However, condo owners have indoor parking whereas apartment dwellers have to park outside. I could never understand, with the number of high end apartments going up in the city, why the owners of 55 Queen St. force their apartment renters to park outside. Has anyone looked at the monthly apartment rental prices for that building? That will discourage a lot of potential renters.

This statement is false.
The reason for the apartments in FiveFive is because there was a demand for it, people kept asking if they could lease a unit, so they added 14 units that could be rented on the 5th floor. To do this they made the square footage of the building larger and kept the 40+ Condos for sale intact.
All of the 2-bedrooms for rent are spoken for and there is only 5 one-bedroom left.
As for the condos, out of the 41 for sale, only a dozen are left.

Just because Castle Manner was a terrible project from the start, doesn't mean that the downtown condo market isn't good.

[MonctonRad]

Moncton's Sommet Park to get controversial facelift
Moncton city council voted 6 to 5 in favour of the changes after heated discussion
Kate Letterick · CBC News · Posted: Aug 23, 2018 6:00 AM AT | Last Updated: 5 hours ago
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/sommet-park-controversial-facelift-1.4794990

[MonctonRad]

One-metre-deep pool for east end Moncton makes Liberal want to yank funding
Cathy Rogers says she didn't fight for funding for a 'wading pool'
Shane Magee · CBC News · Posted: Aug 23, 2018 12:53 PM AT | Last Updated: August 23

So, nobody apparently told city council exactly what they were voting on.

This quote from the CBC article is absolutely priceless!!

The city suggested the new pool won't be so shallow if a lot of people use it at once.

"The water line is at one metre, but typically if you have a number of bathers in the pool, [it] will go up to 1.1 metres," Isabelle LeBlanc, the city's director of communications, said in an interview.

1.1 metres - really, and that's supposed to make up for this SNAFU!!!!

Sometimes you have to wonder what's going on at city hall...........

[MonctonRad]

Site plan for the new east end wading (I mean swimming) pool.

[Ammn_guy]

They should have just bought and funded the boys and girls club a shuttle van and ran it to centennial park for free in the summer months. Probably cheaper to run then the yearly maint on this...

Poor kids or not, its a horrible location, squeeky wheel gets the grease i guess.

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

Site plan for the new east end wading (I mean swimming) pool.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Ammn_guy

They should have just bought and funded the boys and girls club a shuttle van and ran it to centennial park for free in the summer months. Probably cheaper to run then the yearly maint on this...

Poor kids or not, its a horrible location, squeeky wheel gets the grease i guess.

Or put the money toward operations and maintenance for the St. Pat's Family Centre. The pool there would be a year round pool too!

You are right about the squeaky wheel though.

[riverviewer]

Heard it from a friend who heard it from a friend that the new Police Station will be built where the Co-op/Frenchies was torn down behind Heritage Court on Foundry. Anyone hearing anything to back that up?