By James Jackson
Chronicle Staff
The last piece of privately owned land on the campus of Wilfrid Laurier University has been purchased by the university.
In a deal that closed in the first week of January, the school reached a sale agreement with the family that has owned the brown brick home for more than 60 years. WLU paid $590,000 for the 1,233 square-foot home and the 0.07 hectare (0.17 acre) rectangular piece of land at 46 Bricker Ave.
“For reasons of prudent long-term planning, Laurier acquired the property in order to integrate it into the campus and to avoid the possible risk of it being used in a way that was not compatible with the university campus,” said Kevin Crowley, director of communications with WLU.
Crowley also said the school has not yet determined a specific use for the property but is “exploring a number of potential options.”
The property was first listed for sale on Aug. 15, 2014 and garnered plenty of interest from a range of investors, said realtor Mike Milovick when he talked to the Chronicle back in September, but the fact the land was only zoned for university use and could only be developed in conjunction with the university ultimately limited the number of potential buyers and impacted the sale price, Milovick said.
The final sale price is about 40 per cent lower than the $960,000 asking price.
“The only buyer able to utilize the property from a development perspective (was) WLU,” said Milovick in an email.
The home was originally built in 1941 by Helen Merner after she purchased the land from the Town of Waterloo in June of that year for $200, according to land registry records.
Frank and Isabelle Keachie purchased the home in 1952 when it was still surrounded by farm fields and they paid $12,800.
The most recent owner, Mary-Jo Guy, is the daughter of the Keachies and she has lived there since 1986. Health concerns from her family prompted her to move out and put the home up for sale last year.
Guy’s son, Richard Weston, helped handle the sale of the property from his home in San Diego but couldn’t be reached for comment.
The sale of the land completes a long, drawn out effort by the university to purchase all of the property attached to its main campus.
In 1962, the university bought a group of four houses at the corner of Bricker Avenue and Albert Street — the location of the current seminary — for $144,000, and in 1966 the university made it known they intended to purchase the rest of the block as part of its master plan.
According to Weston, WLU attempted to buy the land from his mother as recently as the early 1990s when the school was planning to build the neighbouring Bricker Residence, which opened in 1991.
