A long-awaited addition of residential apartments to The Tech building at 130 Wellington Street East appears poised to begin, SooToday has learned.
Feroze Virani, the Richmond Hill, Ont. owner of the building formerly known as Sault Technical and Commercial High School, then Lakeway Collegiate and finally St. Mary's College, has obtained a $15-million building permit to convert two parts of the structure to housing.
Virani's permit, obtained last month, calls for 59 apartments in Buildings A and C at the 103-year-old former school.
It wasn't immediately clear how Virani's current plans for the property relate to zoning changes approved by city council in September, 2022.
At that time, he wanted to build 230 residential housing units: one-bedroom, two-bedroom and three-bedroom units, even bachelor apartments valued at "$1,200 and up."
Virani said in 2022 that he expected to add the residential units in phases, with work on the first phase of 100 residential units to be finished within about 18 months.
He talked then about demolishing the middle section of the former school and erecting two residential towers of 60 units each, with the entire project taking three to five years to complete.
Maximum height was expected to be no higher than six storeys.
Virani, who is said to be travelling this week, could not be reached by SooToday to determine whether his latest vision for residential conversion has changed since 2022.
His $15-million permit was the largest construction job among 150 building permits issued during June with a total construction value of $29.6 million.
That compared to 175 permits worth $12.3 million during June of 2023.
So far this year, 538 building permits valued at $111.6 million have been issued, compared to 553 permits worth $63.7 million during the same period last year.
Other permits of note issued in June included:
- interior and external renovations worth $7.3-million at Isabel Fletcher Public School, 599 Third Line West
- a $2-million house in the 1900 block of Queen Street East
- the former Community of Christ church at 585 McNabb Street is being converted to a four-unit apartment building at a cost of $1 million
- a $480,000 permit to convert a music room and reading room to three classrooms at St. Basil Catholic Elementary School, 250 St. George's Avenue East
- a $150,000 tenant fit-up at Churchill Plaza to accommodate an office for the LCBO district manager adjacent to the new LCBO store being built there