Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (MPAC), the provincial not-for-profit entity that tells city tax collectors how much your property is worth, is planning to relocate its Sault Ste. Marie offices to the former PUC Trbovich building at 550 Second Line East.
City councillors will learn details of the intended move next week as MPAC asks them to rezone the property to allow offices there.
The city's official plan requires major office buildings to be located downtown, but MPAC's proposal is for 250 square metres – less than the 300 square metres considered to be a major office usage.
The former PUC building is owned by Second Line Properties Ltd.
If councillors approve the zoning change from industrial-commercial, MPAC will join existing tenants FedEx, Canadian Tire, and Reliance Home Comfort on the property.
"The identified space on the subject property historically functioned as office space for PUC when they occupied this building," says Salvatore Marchese from the city's planning department.
"At the time this use was permitted as ancillary to the PUC operations," Marchese said in a report prepared for Mayor Shoemaker and ward councillors.
"Currently the subject property is leased out to multiple tenants that are engaged primarily in warehousing activities. Permitting the minor office use will not impact the site anymore than when it operated under the PUC.
"While the overall goal of the official plan is to see office uses directed to the downtown, there exists within the city – both downtown and outside the area – excess vacant commercial properties.
"Filling these vacancies is an overall priority for the city, with larger scale office uses still being the target of the downtown.
"Given the industrial-commercial designation of the subject property, this use is adding a commercial component that had been pre-existing as an ancillary use to PUC in the past.
"Filling these spaces with small-scale office uses provides an opportunity for businesses to locate in areas with existing vacancies that may not be attractive for industrial operations," Marchese said in his report.
Monday's city council meeting will be live-streamed on SooToday starting at 5 p.m.