91 King Street Back On The Market

A building known as the “crown jewel” of Saint John is back on the market once again.

The former Woolworth’s building at 91 King Street is listed with a sale price of $1.3 million.

The listing seeks a “developer looking to take on a larger project” or a “business looking for a high-profile space to lease”.

“The layout of this building allows for so many options such as a rooftop restaurant, upper floors converted to residential or a new business looking to expand into Saint John,” said the listing from Coldwell Banker Select Realty.

Woolworth’s opened its doors at 91 King in the early 1950s and was later converted to a Bargain Shop in 1994. The three-storey building has sat vacant since the Bargain Shop closed its doors in 2010.

“Since being vacant the ‘crown jewel’ of the city became a shell that sadly its best use was for posting flyers,” said the listing.

Roo Chang and Siobhán Riley, developers from Vancouver who moved to Saint John, purchased the building in early 2018 and had grand ambitions for it.

The mother-daughter team planned to develop commercial spaces on the ground floors and construct up to 10 additional floors with as many as 60 residential units.

“Every time I walked by [that building] I couldn’t get over how sad [it was] that it was standing there, thinking how beautiful this city is and the potential that it has to go back to the old glorious days,” said Chang during an interview with Huddle. “It’s just a matter of people [being] willing to do that.”

Weeks later, it was announced the bottom three floors of the building were for lease and would be ready for occupancy by the end of 2018.

But Chang later decided not to proceed with the redevelopments and sold 91 King to FKLE Investments Inc. The Toronto-based investment firm took possession of the building, along with the old Royal Bank building at 22 King Street, in Nov. 2018.

With files from Huddle, an Acadia Broadcasting content partner.