Summerside building to get a facelift
Image courtesy of user The_Hamburglar on flickr.com
Last Updated: Wednesday, June 6, 2007 | 8:52 AM AT
CBC News
In one of his last acts as P.E.I. premier, Pat Binns has made a nearly $3 million commitment to downtown Summerside.
Cabinet approved a loan two weeks ago of $2.9 million for repairs to Dominion Square to be done over the next five years.
The Summerside Regional Development Corporation bought the downtown building earlier this year, and plans a makeover that will cost about $6 million and take about three years to complete, said Arnold Croken, general manager of SRDC.
"I think everyone agrees that this building is pretty much the heart and soul of the downtown of the city of Summerside with its sheer size," said Croken. "It's about 90,000 square feet and right in the heart of downtown. So it offers a tremendous opportunity for us to start to bring some new growth to the downtown area."
The plan is to transform the historic building into a high-tech hotspot and business centre for downtown Summerside.
"We're looking at software development companies. We've had a number of companies from out of province that have already taken a walk through the building and looked at it," said Croken.
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"And that's pretty much what we see the upper levels of that building containing and on the ground level we see a mixture of business space and high-end retail."
The four-storey building is structurally sound. The inside needs most of the work, Croken added.
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