ESPANOLA—The Manitoulin-Sudbury District Services Board (DSB) has agreed to put the Woods Lane apartment building in Gore Bay up for sale due to the costs involved in maintaining the building.
“The board has made a decision to sell the building,” said Fern Dominelli, CAO of the DSB after a board meeting last week. “No, we are not evicting the tenants of the building, we are just going to be sending out letters to each resident notifying them the building is being put up for sale.”
Mr. Dominelli said for residents, “we will be giving them several options; they can remain in their unit until the building is purchased and see what the new purchaser is going to do with the building and what the next steps are; staff will be offering them to relocate to an existing DSB building (he noted, however, there currently are no new vacancies on the Island). But, as units open up we will offer it to the existing residents. As well, if they (tenants) can find private accommodation, they can apply for direct shelter subsidy.”
Mr. Dominelli explained the DSB’s property committee presented a report last week recommending that the 10 unit (six bachelor, four one-bedroom) apartment complex be put up for sale. He pointed out the DSB had sought expressions of interest on Wood’s Lane and two other properties in Espanola, but there was no interest shown.
As was reported previously, the projected cost of maintaining the Woods Lane units was expected to increase significantly to $42.39 a square foot by 2023 from $1.15 in 2017. “It is the most expensive building for us to maintain,” Mr. Dominelli told the Recorder.
Gore Bay Mayor Dan Osborne told the Recorder, “obviously the DSB is going to be selling the building. If we get the right private buyer we could have a new building developed. It is a prime piece of property on the waterfront and the possibilities of what can be done with it are endless.”
