Collier Centre’s fortunes are finally turning around after a sordid history, the downtown Barrie building's current owner says.

Morrison Financial president David Morrison expects the office tower and two-storey retail portion of the building — about 187,000 square feet in total — to be leased and fully occupied in 2.5 to three years.

All on-site residential condominium units have been sold and are occupied by their owners, Morrison said.

“Our goal is to make this building the first-class, landmark property that it was originally intended to be,” Morrison told Simcoe.com. “The bones are there and the location is the best possible. All it needs is an owner with the vision, desire, competence and resources to make that happen. This is what we, and the real estate development and management company with whom we are working, bring to the table. It is what Fortress (Real Developments), and Mady before them, were missing on a number of counts.”

Morrison Financial, a Toronto-based financing company, acquired the property as a mortgagee-in-possession, after borrower Fortress defaulted on its loan earlier in 2018. The company was owed about $29.6 million.

The company then tried to sell the property, which is valued by MPAC at about $18.5 million, but the site couldn’t attract a reasonable offer.

“What happened is difficult to explain,” Morrison said. “We had two independent, unbiased appraisals opining the value of the property. When we listed the property on two different occasions through two different listing brokerages, no offer came in at even the lower (amount). Management ultimately determined that the reputational issues associated with Fortress were, justifiably or not, thwarting any possibility of a provident sale. We therefore determined the best way to proceed was to take over the asset. By doing this, we would create new value well in excess of what additional investment would be required.”

Collier’s history is marked with controversy. The city initially sold the land to then-builder Mady Development in 2012.

When Mady sought bankruptcy protection in January 2015 and stopped work before selling the project to Fortress, it owed about $50 million to creditors, mostly Laurentian Bank and construction trades.

Fortress also successfully fought a multi-million-dollar class-action lawsuit against two people who invested money in a syndicated mortgage — defined as a situation where a group of people jointly invest in a single mortgage on a property — and alleged the company did not disclose several major investment risks on Collier.