THUNDER BAY – Business Now – There is change afoot at County Fair Plaza apparently. Sources are reporting that the property has been acquired by Toronto based Parallax Investment Corporation. Over the past several years, the County Fair Plaza has seen many of the former merchants leave. Vacant space was the normal for much of the smaller shops. It was a massive contrast to the mall in its former glory days.
Across Thunder Bay, developers from outside of our community are seeing the advantages of purchasing property in our city. So too are some of the local developers, witness the Thunder Bay Country Club condo project and the Fort William Collegiate condo complex as two examples.
County Fair Plaza is a single storey 87,807 SF enclosed mall with an additional 13,600 SF freestanding building located on 12.17 acres, along with 3.38 acres of vacant development land. There are three major existing tenants; Family Foods, Bank of Montreal and the Thunder Bay Public Library.
The asking price for the property was $4 million. It is not known what the final selling price was.
RE/MAX realtor Vince Mirabelli comments, “I can’t give a direct answer on the actual offer and purchase because I am not the agent involved. But what I can say is that if Parallax is the purchaser of County Fair Mall then this will be a significant investment from Parallax in the city of Thunder Bay”.
“An investment that is both good for their company and for our community,” continued Mirabelli. “There’s a lot of activity brewing in our city with investments coming in from out of town REIT’s (Real Estate Investment Trusts) and national commercial development companies. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what happens”.
Parallax Investment Corporation is a privately owned and operated real estate development company founded by Owen Lawson in 1981. Over the years Parallax has successfully completed every one of the over 75 significant development and investment ventures we have taken on and currently have over $120 million of development under construction. Parallax has extensive experience in a broad spectrum of asset classes from regional shopping centres, condominiums, office buildings, mixed-use facilities and public infrastructure projects. Parallax has a proven track record and a reputation for being a very nimble and creative company that can successfully complete projects taking on a whole host of forms from ground-up development, building retrofits and asset repositioning under a multitude of joint venture structures including public private partnerships.
The re-development of County Fair back to its days as a vibrant and thriving shopping mall would likely represent a positive step forward that recognises the changing face of the immediate area.
