Newmarket’s historic Union Hotel at the corner of Main Street and Davis Drive has been sold after being on the real estate market for about five months.
While the sold price has not yet been made public, the property was listed on Nov. 1, 2018 by Indusite Realty Corporation for $1.495 million.
York Regional Council authorized the sale of the property at its April 11 committee of the whole meeting and region staff will now complete the transaction.
“Yes, the Union Hotel has been sold, and my understanding is it’s for office use, but there’s still very little information on that,” Mayor John Taylor said at Newmarket's council meeting Monday.
“It does have heritage conditions tied to it through the site plan here in Newmarket, so we should see a heritage restoration and, hopefully, someone will occupy it and bring that building back to life in the near future, it’s been (empty) for far, far too long.”
Four purchase offers were received during the first 14 days of the listing, according to a regional staff report.
“Staff reviewed the offers and successfully negotiated the disposition of the subject property with one of the four bidders,” the report states. “The property will continue to be listed for sale until the agreement of purchase and sale has been fully executed. No other competing bids have been received as of the time of writing this report.”
The circa-1882 building at 425 Davis Dr., along with the adjacent building at 431 Davis Dr., affords the new owner 0.28 acres with 4,240 square feet of total floor space in which to work.
The Colonial Revival-style, once-grand Union Hotel has received heritage designation because it is representative of Newmarket’s early development and prominent local citizens who held court there.
It has fallen into such a state of disrepair, however, that former Newmarket heritage advisory committee member Malcolm Watts questioned why anyone would be interested in purchasing it.
“A developer can’t just knock it down,” Watts told NewmarketToday last October. “It’s been sitting there in limbo for about five years, if not longer. ...It requires heritage restoration. It's a labour of love.”
The Union Hotel’s last decade is nearly as storied as its earliest beginnings.
The Region purchased the property, along with many others along Davis, to make room for the Viva rapidway road expansion, which was completed in 2015.
The former luxury hotel, reflective of early urban development about the time Newmarket was incorporated as a town, and its sister building had to be set back on the property to accommodate the new sidewalk and boulevard.
During that move, the hotel suffered some structural damage and the exterior brickwork further deteriorated, history buff Watts argued, due to being moved twice to get it onto a new foundation. The structure's age and the elements have also contributed to its rundown condition, he added.
The hotel was placed on temporary beams at the back of the property while the foundations for the final location were constructed, and the second move was from the temporary beams to the permanent foundations, a York Region spokesperson told NewmarketToday, adding that the hotel now sits on a solid foundation.
"It is great that someone has stepped forward and I hope they will be meeting the restoration stipulation," local historian Richard MacLeod said. "It is a priceless piece of property."
The Union Hotel was built in 1882 by James P. Flanagan. Flanagan’s son, Thomas Flanagan, continued the operation of the hotel until 1896. The Town of Newmarket’s Local Architectural Conservation Advisory Committee (LACAC) has indicated that during this time it also may have operated as a brothel, according to historical records.
James Burke, who also operated the Newmarket Soda Water Works Company, owned the property from 1897 to 1907. Burke moved the soda operation onto the property. Patrick Hodgins owned the property after Burke and constructed the adjacent building at 431 Davis Dr. The end of the hotel’s operation appears to coincide with the temperance movement when Newmarket went dry in 1911, historical records show.
Check back here for more on this developing story.
