Building that houses both is up for sale
MANITOWANING—It has only been after long deliberations and discussions on several options that Assiginack municipal council has decided to tender for sale a downtown building (115 Arthur Street) that houses both the Canada Post Corporation office and the Bank of Montreal.
“None of us want to lose the building or either of the tenants, Canada Post or the Bank of Montreal,” stated Assiginack Mayor Brenda Reid in an interview with The Expositor last week. “But we are a small municipality with a small number of taxpayers, and we don’t need to be subsidizing these two large multi-million-dollar corporations.”
“The lease amounts we receive from both of them don’t cover the maintenance costs of the building,” said Mayor Reid.
Mayor Reid said the township council, “has had two engineers look at the building’s condition and what it would take to bring the building up to code. We found that the cost to upgrade the building would be approximately $1.3 million and it would cost $1.7 million for a new building. And there is no grant money provided for this type of thing.”
“We looked at replacing the building with a couple of mobile buildings for each of the two tenants, but that would have cost approximately $1.7 million,” said Mayor Reid.
“It was a very difficult decision for council to make (to put the building up for tender sale),” stated Mayor Reid. “The building can’t go on as it is currently, and the state of the building has been brought to council and considered for a number of years.”
Mayor Reid said she remembers a major campaign put on by residents in the municipality about 35 years ago when the bank post office was threatening to pull out of the community. She said the recent decision by council has nothing to do with depleting financial resources in the municipality due to the lawsuit the municipality faced several years ago from the S.S. Norisle Steamship Society and the ship’s subsequent scrapping. “The cost of that lawsuit was paid off a long time ago, and the money for removal of the ship (Norisle) is being paid off with a long-term loan.”
“We have had extensive discussions on what we could do,” said Mayor Reid. She pointed out in the case of Canada Post, “the post office has to give us our mail. They have a mandate to deliver the mail in some form, from that building or another way.”
“Council made a very well-informed decision to declare the building as surplus and put the building up for tender sale,” said Mayor Reid. She noted council is not required to accept any of the tenders it does receive or sell the building off.
As was reported in a story in last week’s edition of The Expositor, the building at 115 Arthur Street has now been declared surplus by the municipality and is now going to be offered for sale by tender.
As had been previously reported, Assiginack has had two engineer reports carried out on the building and the council has looked at the cost of rebuilding the building to code or constructing a new building as well as the other options. Mayor Reid indicated at the last council meeting the costs are astronomical for each option. She pointed out that if the municipality had the building repaired (to remain as landlord) Assiginack would not make enough revenue to make this worthwhile and that all these costs would be borne by the taxpayers.
The township also had the building appraised, and this amount was $175,000.
Tender bids are being accepted by Assiginack until Friday, April 26. In the tender form it states in part, “the bidder acknowledges that they must maintain any lease agreement with the current tenants.” The current lease term with BMO ended on October 31, 2023 with extensions available. With the lease having expired BMO had expressed interest in renewing the lease, but council wants to see what comes out of the tenders for the building. As for Canada Post the current lease term expires on January 1, 2028.
