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9 and 11 Commercial Street has been family owned for over 100 years by the Bagnell family. 14 Queen Street, being adjacent to the building and now attached, has also been family owned for over a century. We now call these collection of buildings The Common Works (TCWs), with 1 Commercial Street being the single civic address on commercial, and 14 queen street remaining as the civic address on queen. However, this was not how it was before.

Originally, 1 Commercial Street was known as the heritage or historic building. You can see a photo of this historic building in the late 1800s with the sign facing commercial street, written as ‘RJ Turner’. This photo was taken by the Truro Common (now known as Victoria Square), which is why the entire building and project name was coined as: ‘The Common Works’.

The building itself is as beautiful as it is resilient, in the photo below, you can see the firefighters on site trying to extinguish the roof of 1 commercial street as it was set ablaze. Structurally, the building was fine and still strong, however the roof was shrunken on the 3rd floor as there was significant fire damage. This would later be one of the biggest challenges faced during the re-development of TCW in 2020- restoring the building to its original authentic design without destroying it completely. More on that later.

Though the mid-1900s, 14 queen street was originally used as a large scale commercial laundry business known as Bagnell’s Family Laundry . In the late 80’s, the business pivoted and seized new opportunities which came with necessary structural changes to accommodate this new venture.

The collection of buildings have gone through renovations over the years, but never of this magnitude. Before the re-development began in 2020, 1 Commercial Street (red portion of TCWs) was used as an apartment building with retail space on the 1st floor.

In 2021, Phase 1 of the re-development began which focused on the re-development of the historic building as , restored and preserved to its original authentic design. Below you can see 1 Commercial St in the late 1800’s with the sign written ‘RJ Turner’. This photo was taken by the Truro Common (now known as Victoria Square), which is why the entire building and project name was coined as: ‘The Common Works’.

1 Commercial St, Truro NS. Letters on the front of the building display ‘R.J. Turner’.

The overhaul is a welcoming new look to the Town of Truro, and it allows access to additional class A spaces including the home to the world headquarters of the Inland Group of companies. Now completed, TCW is a united 3 storey building containing prime real-estate and is hopeful to bring more business to the area.

https://www.historicplaces.ca/en/rep-reg/image-image.aspx?id=1603#i1