A prominent downtown Barrie building could have new owners and a new name.
That would be the 11 storeys at 90 Collier St. and 55 Mulcaster St., right across from Barrie City Hall.
The new owners of the office/retail space could be Jamie Massie, Dino Melchior and Mike Stollery.
“We hope to be, we’re not there yet,” Massie told BarrieToday of the sale. “It’s in a court process. We’re buying it, from the current mortgage holders. That’s why the building has been sitting empty for so long, I think.”
Called Lakeview Corporate Centre, and formerly known as Collier Centre, Massie said he would change the name to Barrie City Centre if the deal goes through.
“It’s really the centre of the city,” said Massie, president and chief executive officer of Georgian International, which already occupies the building’s top floor.
Mayor Alex Nuttall announced the deal earlier this week at the Barrie Chamber of Commerce Mayor’s Luncheon.
“I think having local owners who have obviously invested their entire lives here is a huge thing for the city,” Nuttall said. “I think it’s really going to put this building, this office space, this retail space back on the market.
“When there’s investor confidence restored, you’ll start to see some of these spaces leased up, which will bring more people downtown, more people buying lunch and hopefully, eventually, we’ll see some sort of grocery store downtown as well,” the mayor added.
Despite having the Bank of Montreal (BMO) anchoring the property, Bill Gosling Outsourcing and the Canadian National Institute for the Blind hub there, Massie said the building is three-quarters empty.
“It really is, we believe, a great asset for the city of Barrie and we’re interested in helping it get fixed,” he said. “So often our assets in our city get purchased by people from Toronto that don’t have the same care to see it successful as we would, so that’s what has kind of motivated us.”
He said a February court decision would give them title to the building.
“We’re hopeful that we can bring tenants and revive the building to be what it was designed to be,” Massie said.
He said Melchior Management is committed to taking a floor.
Stollery is the founder of AutoIQ, an automotive dealership network.
