![\"Canterbury](\"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/atlantic\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2015\/11\/Canterbury-Car-Park-600x450.jpg\")
tenants: Picaroons brewery, RealFood Connections and Buckland Merrifield Gallery.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Prince William Street, a living architectural relic, was designated the first nationally historic streetscape by the federal government in 1981. \u201cIt\u2019s the best intact collection of Victorian structures in the whole nation \u2013 that\u2019s what they said at the time,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s just simply good luck that no building has burned down [since then.]\u201d<\/p>\n
Highly walkable and compact, uptown Saint John today has several pockets in the midst of renewal.<\/p>\n
On Prince William rests the Old Post Office, with its Roman arches and mansard roof, poised to be repurposed into condominiums by developers from Alberta. Just a street over and down the block from Port City Royal, another venture is taking shape. Come November, a Victorian-era structure, which became a car dealership, will house new tenants: Picaroons, a Fredericton brewery; RealFood Connections, purveyor of local food; and Buckland Merrifield Gallery, an exhibitor of New Brunswick art. Above it, the Canterbury Car Park will also be remade into 14 luxury apartments.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s local beer, local food, local art all under the same roof,\u201d said Keith Brideau, the man behind Historica Developments, which heads the project.<\/p>\n
Brideau is in the business of selling the idea of living life uptown. And baby boomers and young professionals are taking notice of the property developer\u2019s efforts. He took stock of the uptown and was struck with the idea of remodelling and repurposing heritage buildings while preserving its historical character.<\/p>\n
The flurry of development isn\u2019t concerning for Goss, who believes there\u2019s a strong mandate to protect heritage buildings uptown, with a bylaw that designates its streets as historic under the Trinity Royal Conservation Area. He also recognizes things move at a different pace and cities need to find a functional use for its stock.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe move things differently now than we did in 1879. \u2026\u00a0 You have to be open-minded,\u201d he said. \u201cIf there wasn\u2019t a good, solid board that are serving to protect the downtown, I would be worried.\u201d<\/p>\n
Goss is supportive of Brideau\u2019s efforts, which keep the buildings alive long after they\u2019ve been abandoned. Brideau\u2019s vision for uptown is straight from an urbanist\u2019s checklist: a vibrant, mixed-use landscape where people can pop in and out of shops and roam the streets. And it\u2019s been more than seven years in the making, as he works one building at a time to fill the often-lonely uptown streets.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople do want to move into the uptown now. We feel it\u2019s shifted to the point where a lot more people are going to\u2026 leverage the quality of life, all these amenities that exist, which took decades to attract,\u201d he said. \u201cIt has been a work in progress and finally, we feel like are in the tipping point.\u201d<\/p>\n Nancy Tissington, the executive director of Uptown Saint John, agreed. \u201cThere is a renaissance happening in the city. I noticed more people walking around the city and the uptown,\u201d she said, adding that\u2019s a far cry from when she left 10 years ago for Halifax. \u201cBut now, Saint John is a walkable city. And it has a strong restaurant presence.\u201d<\/p>\n Tissington looks after the interests of more than 650 business and property owners uptown through its Business Improvement Association (BIA), which spans 20 blocks. With an operating budget of $400,000 a year, the BIA doles out grants for beautification, creates events to generate traffic uptown, promotes new ventures, among other things.<\/p>\n It\u2019s encouraging to see that kind of appetite for investment, she said. \u201cIt makes me believe there are an awful lot of eyes looking here.\u201d<\/p>\n Like Lutes, Brideau has the long-term view of making a life in Saint John. It\u2019s a departure from the trend that has seen thousands of New Brunswickers leave in search of opportunity out West, making it the fastest-shrinking province, according to Statistics Canada. In the last three years, its population has declined by 3,497, even as Canada grew by a million.<\/p>\n But Brideau sees changes on the horizon. \u201cWe feel that in three or four years, things could be dramatically different,\u201d he said, referring to the arrival of $2-billion Energy East pipeline and the $205-million expansion for the Port of Saint John. \u201cIt\u2019s an incredible buyers\u2019 market, [and] in five years, it could be a sellers\u2019 market.\u201d<\/p>\n Saint John has made its bid to serve as the export terminal for TransCanada\u2019s proposed Energy East pipeline, which is expected to create about 2,300 jobs in the province and would deliver 1.1 million barrels of crude. Then there\u2019s the much-anticipated arrival of the $7.5-million barge terminal, which will allow companies to compete for construction projects in Atlantic Canada and the U.S.<\/p>\n However, investors still prefer Halifax over Saint John, he said. \u201cOnce projects like Energy East get the go-ahead \u2026 we feel people will look a lot more closely, but people are hesitant because of the issues we face.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the Waterloo Street area \u2013 once-neglected part of town with a high rate of poverty \u2013 is undergoing its own transformation.<\/p>\n At the centrepiece is the restoration of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, a Gothic revival structure that was spared from the Great Fire. Plans to convert an old high school into mixed-income housing, which had been vacant since 2002, have buoyed optimism that the neighbourhood is on the mend. Such projects propelled developer John Rocca to invest in the area, opening up the Cathedral Place, an apartment complex with a modern finish.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s great for the community,\u201d said Julia Wright, writer and founder of Hard Times in the Maritimes zine. \u201cIt takes a street that has a lot of issues and elevates it.\u201d<\/p>\n And as for whether these developments mark a renaissance for a city in search of a new identity, Wright said, \u201cPeople need something to rally around \u2013 the idea of living life uptown, the idea of a renaissance city. Those concepts are really useful because they elevate the city.\u201d<\/p>\n Although the city\u2019s rebranding doesn\u2019t resonate with Wright because much has yet to change, she said that she understands the mayor\u2019s intentions. \u201cPoliticians are under pressure to constantly \u2026 be announcing change of some sort. When in reality, change is a lot slower than that.\u201d<\/p>\n Goss also hasn\u2019t bought into Norton\u2019s \u201cRenaissance City\u201d saying, \u201cIt\u2019s a nice, catchy little slogan, but it doesn\u2019t ring true to me. It\u2019s a dream, you gotta have a dream. Maybe he\u2019s onto something, but it doesn\u2019t resonate with me.\u201d<\/p>\n Wright shares Norton\u2019s sentiments in wanting to change people\u2019s perceptions. \u201cWe have to reimagine Saint John, change the way we people think about it and the way people imaginatively construct it in order to make things better in reality. Change people\u2019s minds and hearts and you change reality.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![\"The](\"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/atlantic\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2015\/11\/Saint-John-City-Market-600x450.jpg\")
![\"King\u2019s](\"http:\/\/spacing.ca\/atlantic\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2015\/11\/Kings-Square2-600x800.jpg\")