Summerside to purchase and demolish 4 'namesake' downtown buildings
City plans to act as an agent to demolish the properties and sell to a developer
The City of Summerside has purchased four well-known buildings for demolition as part of its downtown revitalization strategy.
The city paid just over $900,000 for the former Crockett's Jewelry, Cooke Insurance, Purple Parrot and Regent buildings located at 4, 8 and 12 Summer St. and 285 Water St.
Deputy Mayor Norma McColeman says the priority is to demolish the buildings during next year's construction season and then find an interested buyer and developer.
"A lot of these would be namesake buildings that were a very big part of our downtown core in say, for example, the '50s," she said.
"They weren't salvageable the way that they are now … there's a very big cost involved to get the infrastructure into the ground as well as having demolition.
"We needed to do something."
McColeman said it has been an ongoing discussion for about 20 years, and the city has looked at it seriously for about three years. The city council sees removing the buildings as the only economical way forward.
"We have the chance to have a shovel-ready site on an approximately 1.5 acres that can be made ready for development," she said.
"The city has really done a great deal of due diligence in looking at this project, but they are key properties and the city really felt that it was too important to revitalize the downtown."
The buildings were privately owned and are four unique properties, but McColeman said the future developer may want to merge them for a project.
"We've tried to look at all different avenues but this seems to be the most cost-effective way of doing it, to have a strategy where we'll exit once, you know, there is somebody ready to do a development down the road."
Changing the face of downtown
McColeman said Summerside's small, independent businesses used to thrive in the downtown, but larger stores and malls shifted the city's shopping landscape, and it's now in need of revitalization.
The city's revitalization plan also includes increasing residency in the downtown core. In May, city council approved a 59-unit apartment building on Water Street, and McColeman hopes the future developer of the Water and Summer street properties will include both residential and commercial components.
"What we would really like to see is a product where there's definitely living spaces available, there's retail spaces that complements the existing businesses that are there," the deputy mayor said.
McColeman said ideas for development are currently in the discussion phase.