Real estate firm Armour Group is spending $200 million to develop an old BlackBerry building in Halifax, Nova Scotia, as part of a business campus.

The EON Square project will take the former RIM building on Innovation Drive, along with another 20 hectares for development. Tenants in the existing building include IBM and Canadian telco Bel Aliant, which is acting as anchor tenant for the project and investing $7 million to upgrade its space, effectively creating a new data center.

In total the site will have a million square feet of commercial space. Armour is starting work on a second, seven story building on the site, and may increase the number on the campus to seven, for business use as well as data centers. IBM, for instance, has around 250 staff on the site, according to local news source, the Chronicle Herald.

Moving out of town?
Locals are concerned that the site will take business from the center of town: "A kick in the teeth for downtown Halifax?" asked a contributor to building enthusiasts' site SkyscraperPage.

But Armour CEO Scott McCrea sees it differently: “We envision EON Square as a centre of excellence, propelling future-oriented sectors to expand, supporting local talent and attracting future growth,” his release proclaimed.  The site will also include a hotel, restaurant and retail space - making the largest such campus east of Toronto.

Once-mighty BlackBerry, formerly known as Research in Motion (RIM), has been in decline since 2011, as its phones and tablets failed to compete with Apple products and Android devices. The company's assets, including buildings and staff, have been coming onto the market since then as the company restructures.