UPEI purchasing property that housed former Blaze Pizza
CBC
In an effort to better define the edge of its campus, the University of Prince Edward Island is purchasing nearby properties.
This includes at the corner of University and Belvedere avenues, currently the home of the vacant Blaze Pizza location which closed in late 2025, as well as the adjacent 99 Belvedere Ave. property.
Tim Walker, vice-president of administration and finance at the university, said UPEI has been buying nearby lots of land since 2004, at which time the school purchased some land at 95 Belvedere Ave. that had been put up for sale. This occurred again in 2015, when a property at 93 Belvedere Ave. was placed on the market, and was UPEI’s last time purchasing nearby property until now.
“It's all in service of trying to better define the campus and potentially give us a little bit of room and flexibility for future development or services, for that matter,” Walker said.
“Because we are landlocked, there is no way around it. We are surrounded by major thoroughfares and there is not a lot of ways to spread in any direction.”
Walker said the property came at a cost of about $500,000, which he said was slightly more than market but less than the original asking price. He said “that’s to be expected” in a captive market.
Unlike previous purchases that saw properties put onto the market, Walker said the university was approached and informed the owners were intending to leave for other opportunities out of province and that they were interested in selling UPEI the property.
“It was very specific. And so the conversation started at that point. We went back and forth for quite a time before we actually settled on it,” he said.
“So at the end of the day, we looked at this as an opportunity to really build on, invest in the future of our campus plan…. This opens up new possibilities and we are trying to figure out exactly what that means to our culture and our facilities plan.”
Walker said the house at 99 Belvedere Ave. “had no purpose for us,” and was “right in the middle of two other lots of land that we now owned.” He explained the university is selling the structure and a deal would require a new owner to move the house at their cost.
As for plans for the newly acquired space, he said there is no immediate desire to pave for parking, a longtime grievance among students at the university.
He explained the campus currently has about 2,000 spaces – which does not include the Bell Aliant Centre or the farmers’ market parking lots – and he said current counts place vacant spots at about 10 per cent at any given time. There is a wait list for parking passes and Walker said they do “a small oversell” of 15 to 20 per cent because not all vehicles with a pass are going to be on campus simultaneously.
“We really want to make it safe,” he said. “There may be a medium-term plan where we level and grade it with gravel on it. But at the end of the day, we're not planning any major change to the lot itself at this time simply because we don't know where we're going yet on a longer-term use.”
He noted the current campus plan discusses becoming pedestrian friendly and being more accessible, as well as “reflecting a student-centred approach” in design and service as well as making the campus more green.
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