Condo plan means community group must seek new home

A St. John's community group is looking for a new home after the owner of its current office space gave notice that it plans to turn the building into condos.

Tenants at the Virginia Park Plaza say they’ve received notices to move out by the end of September.

The property’s manager, Martek Morgan Finch, wrote in a June 6 letter to tenants that the building "will be re-configured to accommodate condominiums."

The building is currently home to a dentist’s office, restaurant and not-for-profit community groups like the Community Sector Council. 

While they've been expecting this for years, council CEO Penny Rowe says it's still "an awful shock."

Rowe is putting out a call to property owners who may be willing to work with her organization and other groups to find suitable space at an affordable price.

That task is made tougher by the city’s tight real estate market.

Rowe says she hasn’t seen a piece of property that the group could acquire for anything less than double what it is paying now.

"So the challenge for us is trying to reduce by more than 50 per cent the space that we occupy," Rowe said.

"And that is really going to be huge in terms of how we do business."

According to Rowe, the task of finding a new location is a daunting one.