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Originally Posted by jonny golden
When Covid drove people out of the office to work from home, it wasn't just a blip on the radar. I know many people who now work from home and would never want to go back to the office. I have some friends who are being forced back who really don't want to work from the office. They look at it as an unnecessary & major inconvenience.
There are many examples of office space being converted to residential, with great success. Calgary for example - their city center was practically becoming a ghost town with a huge amount of vacant office space. The city created an incentive plan and developers took advantage. It was a major success story, creating a new vibrancy, tax revenue, and profitable buildings once again.
There's office space here in Moncton that's been sitting vacant for years, a lot of which is downtown. Why? The only reason I can think of is that it wouldn't be financially viable to convert to residential. Otherwise why would they be sitting back generating no revenue from the empty space?
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I certainly couldn't see the City of Saint John being able to offer a program comparable to Calgary's on a per capita basis.
Saint John's been starved of industrial and commercial tax revenue for more than half a century by the province. Housing is a provincial responsibility, it should be the
province of New Brunswick that steps up to the challenge of funding an office to residential conversion incentive plan, starting in the city with the most unused office space, and largest historical grievances with the province over taxation issues.
This is the type of program that we could actually make a difference if we were to contact in large numbers important figures like housing minister, David Hickey, Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure, Chuck Chiasson,
Minister of Local Government/Minister responsible for Service New Brunswick, Deputy Premier Minister of Finance and Treasury Board Minister, René Legacy, or even the premier herself, Susan Holt.
The province of NB has a gluttony of unused office space, and it could be better redeveloped as residential or for mixed uses. I'd go one step further, and push for an coast branch of office of the Major Projects Office to be opened in either Saint John or Moncton, New Brunswick... Canada's only bilingual province, which happens to be a full 3 hours ahead of the Major Projects Office's HQ in Calgary.
Brunswick Square certainly has more than enough space for a branch of the Major Projects Office across one or two floors. Sounds like Moncton has a lot of unused office space too, and has more bilingual workers than Saint John. I assume Fredericton has the least amount of unused office space since it's the capital... but it's never safe to assume.
I think funding office to residential conversions is a really good idea worthy of provincial and federal funding, or even municipal funding in cities that can better afford it. The City of Moncton is probably a lot more financially able to fund a program similar to the success story in Calgary and other cities, but
all cities in NB are underfunded by the province, even Fredericton. NB cities lack the power and autonomy to raise rates on industry, commercial, and other types of properties with high externalities that cities in other provinces are able to raise rates on, without this archaic, arbitrary tax formula in NB that requires all raises to industrial and commercial tax rates to have corresponding raises on residential rax rates.
All of our cities have been let down by the system for decades, Saint John especially, but I think all 3 main cities deserve robust provincial funding for office to residential conversion incentive strategies.
I rarely email my MP or our MLAs, but if someone with experience at writing appeals to government could come up with some sort of succinct, but substantial form letter advocating for the province to invest in a program for office to residential conversions, (perhaps starting with Brunswick Sqaure) that we could send off to heavy hitters at the province, the federal government, and all other relevant actors including local development agencies, municipal governments, building owners, etc. . .
Who knows, maybe we could actually get multiple levels of government to commit to some sort of plan or strategy to incentivize office to residential conversion? Imo, it's the province of NB that should be the priority lobbying lobbying efforts, as the line "housing is a provincial responsibility" have become a mantra of sorts to many who discuss the "housing and affordability crisis". Though, of course, it would be good to get as many municipalities, development agencies, the feds, and other relevant actors to support the idea/strategy.
Brunswick Square is one of the saddest building complexes in the province, but that could change quite quickly.
It would be amazing to see
BS reborn as New Brunswick Square. The province should study the prospects and be willing to fund the project, even if it means the province buys the property from Ravelin. Personally, I think that would be the best case scenario anyways. If NB no longer finds itself in a "housing crisis" ten years from now, and the government is desperate to pay down the debt, maybe they could look at selling it, but at the moment, I don't think Ravelin is willing to step up and pay what it would cost to do a full blown residential conversion of the Brunswick Square office tower.
Maybe Ravelin would be more willing to do it if the government was willing to step up with major funding, but at that point, wouldn't it just be better for the NB Housing Corporation to purchase the
office tower portion, and pay private companies to convert Brunswick Square Tower into a mixed use residential building?
If it was up to me, the conversion would result in mostly affordable units, along with some
deeply affordable and/or social housing units on the lower floors. I'd also like to see some smart mixed use developments like medical offices, moving the service NB office from King Square to
new Brunswick Square, or maybe some real surprises like a VIP cinema, restaurants, or a KTV bar, like you'd see at many high rise malls in Asia.
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new Brunswick Square could be a happening place again, even the mall, but I don't think the office tower will ever rebound, short of some massive windfall, like if a major corporation wanted to move their entire corporate offices to Saint John or something like that, which is not very likely. But the province stepping up to purchase the building and fund a residential conversion? I'd say that's well within the realm of possible.
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... something I think he puts wayyyyy too much importance on, but I do agree it would be nice to see more students at UNBSJ along with an expanded Uptown campus, something I've heard him bring up out of nowhere in the middle of council meetings a few times. 
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