WOLFVILLE, N.S. — A change has come to the face of downtown Wolfville.
A part of downtown stands a little taller.
The building, next to the Library Pub and Merchant Wine Tavern, near the corner of Main Street and Elm Avenue, is now unbound by scaffolding. The renovations to that building – an extensive interior and exterior update – are almost complete.
“We’re excited… the staging is coming down; which means the front is complete, right down to the last bead of caulk,” said Ian Porter, developer and owner of the property. “It was quite a process. There were quite a few unknowns as we went along with the structure.”
The work on the building has left it sheathed in staging and scaffolding for what Porter estimates to be about a year-and-a-half to two years.
Two new floors will be the location of eight new high-end short-term rental suites.
“They are basically fully-equipped apartments. The smallest one is a little over 700 square feet, and the largest is a little over 1,200 square feet,” Porter said. “They’re going to be luxury suites, and we’re going to put them on the short-term market.”
The suites will include high-end appliances and all the amenities of comfortable living, including appliances, a washer, dryer, dishwasher and full kitchen.
The exterior of the building has some upgrades, with new windows, doors and storefronts.
Porter chose to make the units short-term and vacation rentals because that constitutes “a hot market.”
“There’s really nothing like these anywhere this side of the town. It’s like your basic Airbnb-idea, as opposed to an apartment you take for a year, or multiple years,” Porter said. “It’s our goal to have it more comfortable than home.”
The location for a vacation hotspot is ideal, Porter said.
He has wanted to do something with the building, observing its structural integrity, since he was much younger.
“It’s in good shape and it’s very solid, with a steel skeleton. Even as a child I thought it should have a couple more storeys on it.” he said. “When I had the privilege to buy it a couple of years ago, I jumped at it.”
CHALLENGES
Although the building is sturdy, it’s an arduous task adding floors to any structure. Porter acknowledged there were plenty of challenges for contractors because of the nature of the work.
“We had to start with increasing the footing size. The footings are underneath the building, so doing that with the existing building has lots of challenges,” Porter said. “There’s a whole building above it, so we had to do each (footing) at a time.”
The next challenge contractors faced was tying the existing structure to the new footings in such a way that more could be added to it.
“We had to come down through the roof to connect onto it. Don’t forget we had tenants… the whole time in there,” Porter said. “We tried to interrupt them as little as possible.
“We know we’ve been a nuisance, but they’ve been pretty good about it, and I’m sure today they are all feeling much happier because the scaffolding is coming down.”
Porter said he’s looking complete the project, “before you hang a new calendar up.”
