Work is ramping up on the $300-million Fundy Quay development project in uptown Saint John.
Site servicing has begun on the waterfront site, according to the vice-president of development at Fundy Harbour Group.
Chris Elias said foundation work on the first building in the southwest corner of the site should start later this fall.
“We’re looking at about 18 to 24 months for the construction cycle for this building,” Elias said in a recent interview.
The six-storey building will have 79 residential units, ranging in size from one to three bedrooms, along with ground-floor retail.
It is the first of five buildings proposed for the site which, when full build-out is completed, is expected to have 677 residential units.
Construction market risks over the past few years forced Fundy Harbour Group to adjust its overall plans for the city.
The company initially wanted to build the southeast building first, which would be 16 stories tall and have 165 units.
In January, Elias appeared before council again to get approval for the second building on the southwest corner of the site.
“When we had a lot of headwinds in the construction market with high costs, we decided to give ourselves more flexibility and to design and go through the approvals process for the second building so that we had two fully-designed buildings that were ready to go when we saw market conditions start to come towards us,” said Elias.
Elias said it also makes more sense to construct the southwest building first since it will be located on the water’s edge, while the southeast building will be built along Water Street.
While volatility in the construction market is something Elias and his team were not used to, he feels things are heading in the right direction now.
“We are very pleased with our decision to work on design as opposed to starting construction right away during that extreme volatility. I think the project is going to be much, much better off for us having done that,” said Elias.
Elias said they are currently looking at optimal sequencing for the full build-out of the site.
A lot of that, he said, will be dictated by how well the market uptick is for the first building.
“We’ve been getting lots of interest through our company website,” said Elias. “We’ve built out a list of people who have expressed interest. We are doing the same thing on the commercial side as well.”
Fundy Harbour Group has launched a new landing page for the Fundy Quay project, where residents can learn more about the progress and sign up for the waitlist.
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