A board member and acting CEO of Fredericton’s Knowledge Park announced he is resigning over disagreement about the future direction of the tech hub and business park.
“I can’t lend any support to something I don’t truly believe is the right thing for the company, first and foremost, but also the right thing for the community,” Jeff Thompson said in an interview Wednesday.
Thompson had served on the board for nearly a decade and said that over the last several years he and another board member worked to develop a plan to push the organization on a different path that would “recognize the changing needs of (the) community.” Since early 2023, Thompson says the board was aligned on that path forward and working towards it, until one member changed their position.
“I appreciate that people can change their positions, but after nine or ten months of everybody being in the same boat, oars in the water, heading in the same direction, it was more than a sudden 180,” he said.
Thompson wouldn’t expand on what that new direction would look like but did point to changes in the commercial real estate sector and the demonstrated needs of community.
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“There’s a general trend in commercial real estate that starts to look at mixed-use development. That can be retail, that can be residential. I also mentioned earlier that there are needs in this community … I would suggest that housing is one of those needs,” he said.
“Knowledge Park will continue to be a commercial business park for technology-oriented tenants, that is established, it’s doing reasonably well. My personal view is that there were far great opportunities to play a larger role in this community, but it’s one that we lost full support of.”
Knowledge Park began in 1997 as a 35-acre tech hub. Much of that land remains undeveloped, apart from the original cluster of office buildings and the Cyber Centre located further down the street that bears the hub’s name.
A nine-month-old LinkedIn post from Partners Global Corporate Real Estate, a commercial real estate firm based in Halifax, said that the original properties located by the Corbett Centre were for sale. However, the listing is no longer active.
The city had also hoped to see the area developed to provide housing and other amenities but has since backed off on that plan due to a lack of movement. In its 2017 growth plan, Fredericton listed four “growth nodes” in various parts of the city. Three of them, the Brookside Drive and Ring Road area, Cliffe Street and Bishop Drive, have all seen fairly extensive development.
But the area on Knowledge Park Drive including the UNB Woodlot and Knowledge Park itself hasn’t seen any new development.
In March the city said it would explore designating a new growth node in the southwest at Doak Road.
Fredericton mayor Kate Rogers wouldn’t comment on the Knowledge Park Board situation but said that the hub remains a critical part of the city. However, she did acknowledge that commercial real estate trends may mean the organization has to evolve.
“Things evolve over time. I mean it’s not the park that was initially envisioned. It was at one time, but like everything it needs to continue to evolve. So, we’re looking forward as a city to see what it evolves into,” she said.
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