CBC Sackville Street building to be sold

CBC will sell its landmark building on Sackville Street in downtown Halifax and house all of its radio and television operations under one roof on Bell Road.

Andrew Cochran, managing director for the Maritimes, announced the plan on Wednesday, a day after the CBC board signed off on it.

The building on Bell Road will be upgraded and expanded to include an extra 35,000 square feet. The work is expected to be done by December 2013.

Cochran said this means that all staff will be in one building and CBC can do more TV and radio productions.

"I hope that Haligonians see this as CBC is renewing its commitment to Nova Scotia and remaining an important part of the downtown fabric," he said.

Cochran said it didn't make sense to move everyone into the Sackville Street building — home to the CBC since the 1940s.Besides being too expensive, CBC would have had to give up its production operations, he said.

"We want to build for what we need," he said.

The YMCA has included the Sackville Street building next door in its redevelopment plans.

Cochran won't say how much the move is expected to cost. But he said the money from the sale of one building won't cover all of the costs to expand the other.

Request for proposals will go out immediately. Employees from the Sackville Street building will move over to Bell Road over the next three years.