Nunastar presents big plans for former CBC Astro Hill site

As CBC North's Iqaluit team is packing the final boxes this weekend for the move to Iqaluit's new CBC bureau, plans are already underway on what to do with the Astro Hill building.

From a Hudson's Bay store, to the home of CBC Nunavut for three decades, it seems the building itself is now poised for demolition.

"It's a pretty drab building overall," said Bruce Alton, the chief operating officer of Nunastar Properties, the company which now owns the building, at a city council meeting Tuesday.

While nothing is finalized, Alton said the intent is to completely redevelop the lot into a new project dubbed Astro Hill Lofts.

"The main floor would be commercial. The front part would be 8,500 square feet of, could be retail or office space. We've had tremendous interest from a number of different potential tenants," Alton said, also mentioning a mall in his presentation.

On the top level of the proposed two-storey building, Alton said the plan is to build 32 one-bedroom loft-style units.

The Astro theatre would also get a makeover, with its own exterior entrance for a "proper public exposure," and a new lobby.

"The movie theatre, from a commercial perspective, is not a really strong financial tenant. But we do recognize it is a really important part our community and our tenants love it."

Nunastar vying for old RCMP property

But Alton said the project is on hold for now because the adjacent RCMP building across from the now former CBC building, is in the way.

As it sits, the property line for the former RCMP building (approximately outlined in red in the image above), means Nunastar has to cross onto someone else's property in order to access the old CBC parking lot. It also cuts direct access to Nunastar's fuel tank, which supplies the entire Astro Hill complex.

Alton said the company's concern is if someone else owned the former RCMP site — which the City of Iqaluit is poised to dispose of or sell — Nunastar wouldn't be able to access its own property. The current layout, where Nunastar crosses the property line to fill its tank, has been that way for 45 years.

Alton also made a safety pitch as a reason why Nunastar should acquire the property. There's a road which runs behind the complex, stretching as far as behind the Frobisher Inn. The problem is, it stops there. It's narrow and larger trucks can't turn around.

"What we'd like to do is create this ring road, which would go all the way around," Alton said. "If you had a fire truck or an ambulance caught somewhere where they couldn't get out, and there was a fire or emergency elsewhere in the community, it would be very troublesome.

"It doesn't really matter who owns the site. We are very interested in owning the site, of course, as we've expressed to the city a number of times, but it's very important that we get access to the site. We need it to operate our current facilities, we need it to expand our current facilities, and we also need it from a life safety perspective."

Fresh and new, councillor says

Following the pitch, Councillor Jason Rochon said he'd be very happy if Nunastar acquired the property, but Councillor Megan Pizzo-Lyall played devil's advocate.

"I feel that it's important for council to remember that Nunastar isn't the only business in Iqaluit and we need to be fair, and need to keep that in mind," she said.

"But I do like the concept presented today. It's exciting, it's fresh, it's new."