Nova Scotia Girl Guides selling HQ to work from home

What started as a pandemic experiment in working from home will become permanent for office staff of the Girl Guides of Canada in Nova Scotia.

The organization has listed its headquarters in Halifax for sale. The Dutch Village Road building was once a bank branch. The organization is already renovating a new rented space in Lower Sackville that will primarily serve as a meeting space for Girl Guide units. 

“There won’t be anybody working full time at the office. There will be one or two staff members that will go in on occasion, maybe once or twice a week,” said co-commissioner Cindy O’Hearn. 

O’Hearn said the switch to working from home during the pandemic was fairly seamless. 

The headquarters building, which the organization purchased back in 2000, represents a significant operating cost. 

“A lot of expenses. And it’s an older building so it needs repairs,” O’Hearn said. “The best option for us, financially, is to sell the building.”

$2.5M listing

The building at 3581 Dutch Village Road in Fairview is listed for $2,499,000.

O’Hearn says since the organization owns the building outright, it’ll be able to use all proceeds from the sale to expand programming for the roughly 3,300 girls who participate in Sparks, Brownies, Guides, Pathfinders and Rangers units. 

She says membership dipped during the pandemic, but is rebounding now that meetings have resumed.

O’Hearn says the supply of rental meeting spaces declined during COVID-19 health restrictions, and having an office that can be used for unit meetings will help relieve that challenge.