End of an era—Canfor puts Cranbrook head office up for sale

With Canfor's recent purchase of Tembec's timber assets in the East Kootenay, the new owners have put the company's head office building up for sale.

Crestbrook Forest Industries (CFI), predecessor to Tembec, bought the 45,000-square-foot Central School building in 1985 from the Cranbrook School Board.

CFI spent over $1.5 million dollars renovating the old school into its corporate offices while maintaining important heritage features. The building was honoured with a Heritage Society of B.C. award in 1986.

At its peak, over 100 people worked out of the building managing Crestbrook's and then Tembec's East Kootenay forest interests. With Canfor's head office in Vancouver it is not surprising to see that the company wants to divest itself of the Cranbrook offices. Local Cranbrook Remax agents Jeannie Argatoff and Adam Stenerson are the listing agents.

There is no word as what Canfor plans to do for office space in Cranbrook, though clearly the current massive building was too much space for the reduced office staffing level the forest company had seen in recent years.

The question is, what kind of demand will there be for an aging heritage building which is undoubtedly Cranbrook's largest set of corporate offices?

Clarification: Kootenay Biz Blog has learned that Canfor did not purchase the Tembec building when they bought their East Kootenay assets earlier this year. The head office building is still owned by Tembec and they have put heritage building on the market for $1.9 million. Canfor will move to other office space once the transaction is complete.