Moncton Developer Prepares To Revive Old Bell-Aliant Building With Office space
MONCTON – A local developer has a new purpose in mind for the old Bell Aliant building on Mapleton Road.
John McManaman, chief executive and investment officer with Thrive Properties, and developer behind the purchase and renovation of the former Bell Aliant building at 555 Mapleton Rd., is turning the long-empty property into a home for his company.
“We’re going to put our own Thrive Properties office in there, the intention being that we will have a lot of development ahead of us in that area,” McManaman told Huddle.
“It’s really nice to be close to where we’ll be developing a lot of property, in a place where we can easily meet clients. It’s right off Wheeler Boulevard if you’re coming from the city and off the Trans-Canada if someone’s coming in from out of town,” he added.
Thrive, formerly Cordova Realty, will be using 7,000 square feet of it for its head office, after McManaman mused about temporarily using or demolishing the property shortly after purchasing it from Bell Aliant in May 2021.
“We previously gutted the Bell Aliant building, so right now it’s just an empty shell. We’re going to totally revamp it,” said McManaman.
That revamp – awaiting municipal approval at the time of writing – includes interior work, new brick and glazing among other enhancements.
The cost of building a new home for Thrive remains to be determined, noted McManaman, who was unable to provide a cost estimate on the work.
McManaman hopes to start work to convert the old Bell Aliant building into Thrive’s office space in December or January, and expects to wrap up by summer 2022. He has contracted the work out to Moncton-based Newco Construction Ltd. Design work was contracted to SableARC Studios of Charlottetown.
McManaman said the mixed-use building will be home to two other occupants – a professional service provider and a distribution office.
Although both tenants have submitted floor plans, McManaman declined to disclose their names, noting their plans weren’t public when this article was published.
The 200-acre parcel of land Thrive owns is the largest part of an area designated as Moncton’s Vision Land, an area bounded by the Trans-Canada on one side and Wheeler Avenue on the other.
“One of the reasons we bought the property was that we wanted to ensure it’d be a good fit with everything else we’d been doing,” said McManaman.
“It’s a very significant investment in the land and the future construction. We will have a lot of development ahead of us in that area,”
“The city is quite motivated these days to see the vision lands developed because they’re the last remaining piece of undeveloped land within the city’s urban boundaries,” said McManaman.
Thrive’s new office is close to Mapleton Park Place, a three-building apartment complex McManaman is developing on a 25-acre parcel of land at Cabela’s Court – the former home of the now-closed outdoor sports retailer of the same name.
Mapleton Park Place is one of several McManaman is developing in Greater Moncton, including the Village at Twin Oaks, a six-building 540-apartment development fronting nearby Twin Oaks Drive in Moncton, as well as the Tides, a 74-unit building at 230 Coverdale Rd. and Dobson Crossing, a three-building, 250-apartment development on Gunningsville Boulevard in Riverview.