Vacant West Bedford building sold by N.S. government to Shannex for $46M

Nova Scotia is partnering with Shannex, a long-term care company, to renovate and build what will be a 178-room transitional care centre in the Halifax suburb of Bedford.

The private company will purchase the facility and lands for $46 million from the province, as well as take over renovations at 21 Hogan Court. During renovations, Shannex will also be building a 110-room addition that’s slated to be completed by April 2026.

Shannex will own the building once renovations are complete.

“It would allow us to deliver beds two years more quickly than any other approach. It went through an alternative procurement process,” said Health Minister Michelle Thompson on Friday.

“We followed those rules associated with that. And now we see that was a jumping off point for an even more efficient and more exciting model perhaps than we had envisioned on our own.”

Shannex has a current five-year contract to provide operational services to the centre, which will accept patients from hospital who don’t need hospital care but will transition to home care or a long-term care environment.

The province bought the Hogan Court building — an unfinished hotel — in January 2023 from Cresco Holdings Ltd. for $34.5 million.

In February of this year, Nova Scotia’s auditor general, Kim Adair, released a report calling the purchase an “unusual arrangement” that lacked appropriate due diligence.

“The province spent $34.5 million in an unusual purchasing arrangement with a developer that did not own the property and then quickly approved a $15-million renovation budget without detailed cost estimates,” Adair told reporters at the time.

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The expansion of the Bedford project means a transitional care facility planned for Bayers Lake in the Halifax area won’t be built, leaving health officials to rethink further use for the province-owned land.

The Health Department says to date, the purchase and renovations at Hogan Court have cost taxpayers just under $46 million.

The deal was met with criticism from the province’s opposition leaders.

“We still have lots of private parties that seem to have been enriched by the ways in which this government has bungled this file to date,” said NDP Leader Claudia Chender.

“This is why we continue to have questions.”

Meanwhile, Liberal Leader Zack Churchill said it appeared Shannex was “bailing the government out on this one.”

“They obviously saw an opportunity here and some gaps in what the government’s initial plan was, and I think it’s smart for them to take advantage of it,” he said.

— With files from The Canadian Press and Global News’ Zack Power