Rare sight in downtown Sudbury as new office building goes up instead of a parking lot

For one of the first times in decades, buildings demolished in downtown Sudbury are not being replaced with a parking lot and business owners are taking it as a positive sign.

It's happening on a stretch of Beech Street, which a few years ago was lined with old houses. A few were then torn down and replaced with parking.

A few more were demolished recently and construction began on a $4.5 million, two-storey,13,500 sq. ft. office building that will still feature 45 parking spots. 

The owners —  who also own several other properties in that part of downtown Sudbury, including the former Sudbury Star building and the parking lot where the Steelworkers Hall once stood — did not respond to requests for comment.

Their project did receive $566,490.45 in city tax dollars under the downtown community improvement plan.

"It's not being turned into a parking lot, yeah, definitely that's an encouraging sign and hopefully we will see more of that," said Bobbi Deisinger, a downtown Sudbury board member and owner of All About Massage Day Spa on Durham Street. 

She says there continues to be a perception that there's a lack of parking in the downtown, which sometimes brings up mixed feelings when spots are built over.

That happened recently in the small parking lot behind her business where the soon-to-be-opened Place Des Art now stands.

"Definitely there is a bit of a trade-off when you're taking away parking for development, but it's going to be bringing so many more people right to the heart of downtown," Deisinger says. 

She says despite some big office tenants leaving downtown Sudbury in recent months and questions about how many workers will return to the core after the pandemic, Deisinger says she is more hopeful about the future of the core than when she bought her business 11 years ago.