A committee formed to try to buy the St. John the Baptist Cathedral Basilica complex in St. John’s is struggling to raise money as private developers scramble ahead of a crucial deadline for bidding next week.
The committee is made up of the Basilica Heritage Foundation, the St. Bonaventure College and the St. Bon Forum, and intends to present an offer for the so-called Basilica Block. The deadline for submitting bids is Thursday.
“Just before yesterday a group of Toronto developers came to town and knocked on the school door to look around because they have a vested interest in buying it and turning it into condominiums,” Rob Blackie, president of St. Bonaventure’s College Independent School Board and a member of the new joint bidding committee told CBC News on Friday.
The Sant Bonaventura School has been part of the educational landscape of the city of Sant Joan for almost 170 years. St. Bon’s, as it is known, is one of many buildings for sale as attempts by the insolvent Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. John to resolve claims of historical abuse related to the ancient Mount Cashel orphanage. (Danny Arsenault / CBC)
The committee hopes to buy the resort and preserve its history, culture and institutions, but Blackie admitted there is a sense of fear and uncertainty about the process.
“Our fear, or our theoretical fear, has manifested itself as real,” Blackie said of developers outside the province who said they visited the school this week.
“The worst case scenario is that we fail and that Toronto developers who are looking at this end up owning it and turning it into something that isn’t.”
Blackie said the committee has received a wide range of support, from the smallest hand-donated cash donations to the savings of a person’s life.
It will not say how much they have raised or how much they will offer, because this information would give an advantage to competing bidders. But with the deep-pocketed developers circulating, Blackie said, every possible dollar is needed.
“The main concern for us is that we don’t really have an idea of what the scale of the competition is. So it’s up to us to determine what the right price is and how much we can raise in a very tight period of time.”
But with the possibility of competitive bidding and a process that favors those who put more money on the table, Blackie said it is possible that one of the most iconic public architecture collections in this province will end up in private hands.
“Either we get it or not, and if we don’t, it’s not just the buildings and the land we risk losing, it’s really the institutions in the buildings that we fear will be lost in the process. “He said.
The Cathedral Basilica of St. John the Baptist is one of the most recognizable and historic buildings in St. John. (Bruce Tilley / CBC)
The archdiocese, formerly one of the most powerful and influential institutions in the province, is liquidating all its assets, including churches, parish halls and rectories, under an insolvency process overseen by the courts. It is part of an effort by the archdiocese to raise money to compensate dozens of survivors of the abuse at the former Mount Cashel orphanage.
It is a process open to anyone willing to pay a 15 percent down payment, with the full amount outstanding in mid-June.
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