Courtesy City of Moncton
Construction of the first of three 15-storey mixed-use apartment towers in downtown Moncton is ahead of schedule, as groundwork nears completion at 20 Record Street.
“Things are going very well. We’re further ahead than we thought we’d be at this time,” said John Lafford, owner of Sackville-based J.N. Lafford Realty Inc.
In a call with Huddle, Lafford said he expected construction to begin in September – but actually broke ground for the first tower in July.
Lafford bought the property where he plans to build three mixed-use towers from Slate REIT in June 2020.
After the development was approved in late May by Moncton’s planning advisory committee, and with work wrapping up on the $30-million Birch Meadows seniors’ apartment complex in the Lewisville area, Lafford said he was able to break ground early for the Record Street development.
Lafford Property is building the first of three towers planned for the home of the former Co-op.
Lafford said he’s aiming to have the first tower done by September 2023.
The first tower, which will boast between 200,000-215,000 square feet of floor space, 150 apartment units and will also accommodate 13,000 square feet of commercial space on the ground floor.
Lafford said if things go according to plan, he hopes to have the second tower up by 2025 and the third up by 2027 – adding 450 new apartments, in total, to Moncton’s rental housing stock at the intersection of Record and Foundry Streets.
The finished tower will feature underground parking, one and two-bedroom apartments and penthouse suites.
“We’re doing them one at a time so we don’t put ourselves in a position of weakness by putting a whole bunch of units on the market and not being sure whether they’ll absorb into the market or not,” Lafford noted.
“We’ll do a tower, see how the rent-up is, and then start a second tower once we’ve got a good number of occupants (in the first).”
In June, Moncton City Council approved over $3-million in grants for the development
When asked what apartments in the building will rent for and if there will be any affordable units, Lafford had a similar answer to when previously asked the same by Moncton Councillor Charles Leger in May – spare on details, Lafford said that remains to be determined.
“Affordable can mean so much. Ultimately, someone has to be able to pay for that, but we have to build something that people can afford to rent from us,” he said.
Lafford attributed building housing stock in a time of extreme demand in Greater Moncton to exceptionally good timing.
“As it sits right now, it would look like we planned this, but that’s a little bit of luck. We’re pretty poised to be able to rent this up because there is quite a demand for housing,” said Lafford.
Lafford’s development is coming together at the site of a kyboshed plan to construct a 360-unit parking lot near the Blue Cross Centre after the city council voted seven to four to reject Slate’s proposal to build a 365-space parking lot.
“The company who owned it was going to do some surface parking, but the city didn’t want that,” Lafford said.
“They wanted to see it densified, and wanted to see residential village-living, not just a surface-level parking lot.”
Sam Macdonald is a reporter with Huddle, an Acadia Broadcasting content partner.
