Sale of property will bring new life to area, Times-Colonist says

CHEK

The property that is home to the Times Colonist has been sold to Merchant House Capital. Calvin To has more on the company’s plans.

The property that is home to the Times Colonist has been sold to Merchant House Capital, the development company has announced.

Merchant House Capital plans to convert it into a mixed-use live and work campus.

“This is not a project that could be duplicated really anywhere in Victoria because of the size of this building,” said CEO David Fullbrook. “It makes for great possibilities.”

The building, at 2621 Douglas Street in Victoria, was built in the early 1970’s. It was originally designed to house two newspapers, but now the Times Colonist occupies less than half of its original office space.

The newspaper says the development will bring new life to the area, and that no jobs will be lost as a result.

“No one should look at the sale of our building as a sign that the TC is going away,” said editor-in-chief Dave Obee.

“It’s not going away because of this. The sale of the building is totally different. We’re getting rid of a lot of excess real estate. That’s all we’re doing. We’re consolidating. And it makes much, much more sense for us to be doing this than to be trying to run a big building as well as a newspaper.”

Merchant House Capital says it plans to use the space occupied by the printing presses for another purpose.

Fullbrook told CHEK News it would happen in “the immediate future.”

Obee says there are no current plans to contract out jobs in the company’s press room. Instead, the newspaper is looking at moving its printing press operations elsewhere.

The unions representing workers in the building say they haven’t been told of any changes.

In a statement today, the Joint Council of Unions told CHEK News, “We, as the Joint Council of Unions, have no information on the future of this building.”

 

Calvin ToCalvin To

Recent Stories

Send us your news tips and videos!