Extra, extra! Creative re-use of old newspaper building provides housing boost

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Facing a housing crunch with its population expected to swell once Volkswagen’s electric-vehicle battery plant opens, St. Thomas is turning to creative ways to bulk up its housing supply.

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The latest example of the city’s push to build more homes comes in the form of the conversion of the former offices of The St. Thomas Times-Journal newspaper, where occupancy is now underway after the property was turned into 16 rental units.

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“We have a number of small, medium and large projects like this happening in St Thomas,” Mayor Joe Preston said of the conversion project. “From a council point of view, we’ve been as aggressively searching for more supportive housing, simply to keep homelessness in check, all the way up to as much supply as we can build.”

Located at 16 Hincks St., in downtown St. Thomas, the former Times-Journal building was bought in 2019 by Hillside Property Developments Inc., which pitched the idea of the conversion that was later approved by city council.

“We were looking for a nice, big project to do, and that building, as beautiful as it was, was just sitting empty,” said Steven Manicom, a St. Thomas native and director of the development company. “So, we took it upon ourselves to create 16 high-end apartments.”

Rents on the units, which offer high-end finishes and modern designs, range from $1,800 to $2,000 per month.

It’s only one of several infill projects council has approved in an attempt to increase housing supply in the city, Preston said, adding more will be needed to absorb the projected demand.

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Last year, for example, construction began on a nine-storey, 167-unit building at the former Alma College, destroyed in a 2008 fire. This is Phase 2 of a project that already delivered a 156-unit tower on the site.

Last month, city hall also announced a partnership with developer Prespa Group that saw the city lease an entire 24-unit building to be used to provide affordable units to seniors.

“Before it was occupied, we went to (the builder) and said, ‘We’d like to lease the whole thing. We need it for seniors,’” Preston said. “So, the housing department did that and now we’ve been able to take some 24 people off our waiting list. You’re going to see some more creativity like that.”

The urgency stems from the added growth and demand the Volkswagen electric-vehicle battery plant, operating under the PowerCo brand, is expected to bring to the city southeast of London.

In 2022, for instance, a city-commissioned study projected St. Thomas’s population reaching 65,100 people by 2051. An updated report, completed after the battery plant announcement, had the city reaching 79,500 people over the same timeline, or about 14,400 more than initially expected.

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“This is our preparation for the growth we are expecting, which is somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000 people a year, so we know we need to project that amount of housing units,” Preston said.

“We have to continue to look at the affordability and the availability of housing in our community,” he added. “It’s still very tight from an availability point of view. We know the supply helps with cost, so we continue to look at every project we can and move forward on it.”

jjuha@postmedia.com

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