Work on Charlotte Street Reimagination Project begins, but questions remain surrounding former Woolworth site

In the months and years ahead, uptown Saint John, N.B., residents will notice big changes on one of its most popular streets.

This week the city began preliminary work on its Charlotte Street Reimagination Project, which aims to improve safety and access for all types of transportation from Union Street all the way down to Broad Street.

“The current work is a little bit of investigative work,” says Ian Fogan, the city’s commissioner of utilities and infrastructure. “Mostly it’s in relation to the location of infrastructure and just confirming the condition of the pipe, where they are located in streets, is the waterline OK, those sorts of things.”

Fogan says Charlotte Street will be on the city’s first “complete streets” which includes good and safe pedestrian access.

Bike lanes are one of the main elements to be implemented, which will be dedicated for the streets' west side. That will mean the loss of an unspecified number of parking spots with parking to only be permitted on the east side of the road.

“There will be some greening too,” Fogan points out, saying trees and grass will be added along the redone road.

The entire project must be competed by 2027 in order to ensure government funding is secured. Fogan says the road will be done in sections, with the first area to be completed on the streets south end between Broad and St. James Street.

“We are trying to get it all wrapped up before the school opens at the bottom of Charlotte,” says Fogan, referring to a new kindergarten to Grade 8 school being built in the Rainbow Park area that runs along Charlotte Street.

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Fogan is also hopeful a few other sections of the street will be completed this year, including the top stretch from Union to Kings Square North. Just beyond that intersection, city crews find themselves in a holdup, with the former Woolworth’s site uptown still sitting as a giant hole almost three years after it was demolished.

“I think it’s a disgrace, it’s pitiful,” says resident Robert Fox on the status of the pit. “People come in on boats and stuff like that, cruise ships, and they look at that in the centre of the city, a hole with nothing there.”

“Something should change, someone needs to do something about it,” agreed high school students Kieran Kirkpatrick and Cameron Wilson. “It’s been here for way too long and they should take charge and do something about it.”

The pit is not only holding up parts of the Charlotte Street Reimagination Project, but also part of the city’s 10-year strategic plan for the Saint John City Market that would pedestrianize Market Street south.

Percy Wilbur is the developer for the site, and still plans to build an approximately 180-unit apartment complex that would have commercial outlets on the main floor.

If it were up to him, he says he would be ready to get shovels in the ground in the next month, but the biggest hold back in terms of starting work at this time is because of the provincial government.

“The federal government and the local municipality have bent over backwards to try and assist developers in creating incentives to sort out this housing shortage,” says Wilbur. “The New Brunswick government is not following suit with most of the other provincial governments in eliminating or easing the PST (provincial sales tax) portion for residential construction.”

Wilbur finds it puzzling the province won’t ease that amount, saying the province is collecting around $8,000 a year from a hole in the ground but it would be close to half a million dollars once the building is up and running.

He remains committed to getting work started before the end of 2024.

“You just try your best,” says Wilbur on residents frustrated with the lack of progress. “If they don’t understand then that’s their issue not mine.”

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