VIDEO: Would someone actually pay $3.6M for old hospital property?

As SooToday recently reported, the company that owns the old hospital site has put one of the buildings up for sale — for $3.6-million, more than four times what the owner bought it for in 2019.

The now-abandoned Plummer renal unit — which includes a 40,000 square-foot structure and a 150-by-181-foot parcel of land — is being marketed as a “great redevelopment property."

The current owner, Leisure Meadows Community Living Inc., purchased the property in 2019 for $850,000 (along with the old General Hospital site for $450,000).

"Personally, I think they’re asking for much more than it’s worth, but the market will dictate what it’s worth,” said Mayor Matthew Shoemaker, during a recent interview in our SooToday studio. “I don’t see it going for that price, but I don’t know.”

As SooToday first reported earlier this year, Leisure Meadows and the City of Sault Ste. Marie are locked in a court battle over property standards enforcement. The company claims the city is "exercising authority it does not have" by demanding 24/7 security at the property and $2-million worth of liability insurance for each building.

"I think they have zero interest in seeing it redeveloped," Shoemaker said of the property owner. "I think they are sitting on it with hope it will significantly increase in value and that they can flip it. The commitment that council has made early on in this term is that we will strictly enforce the building standards bylaw, the property maintenance bylaw, against the renal building and the old General Hospital. The hope is it will cost them money to continue to own it so they can do something with it. If they redevelop it, there will be nobody happier than me. But I don’t have faith in their ability to do so. I don’t have faith in their desire to do so."

The mayor was asked if the city would ever consider purchasing the former hospital site and tearing down the buildings, with the goal of eventually selling the waterfront land to a developer with a genuine vision.

“If there was something that the city could do to assist in the redevelopment, I think we are willing partners to do that," Shoemaker said. "But at this point, we need a willing seller to be able to engage in those conversations — and we, frankly, don’t have that. And even though one of the buildings is for sale, it is for sale with unrealistic expectations. So I don’t think there is any appetite on the seller’s part to sell, and without that, there is very little as a potential buyer that the city could do to make that happen.” 

You can watch the mayor’s full interview HERE.