MANITOWANING—The building that houses both the post office and the Bank of Montreal offices at 115 Arthur Street in Manitowaning has now been declared as surplus by Assiginack township and is now going to be offered for sale by tender.
“At our last meeting we had decided that the building would be declared surplus,” said Councillor Dwayne Elliott who inquired as to an update on the process being followed.
Alton Hobbs, chief administrative officer for Assiginack, told council, “A package has gone to our solicitor and the tender package should be out the first week in March and will be advertised in The Expositor, the township website and on social media.”
As had been previously reported, Assiginack has had two engineer reports carried out on the building and council has looked at the cost of rebuilding the building to code or constructing a new building. Mayor Brenda Reid indicated the costs are astronomical for each option. She pointed out that should the municipality fix the building (to remain as the building landlord), Assiginack would not make enough revenue to make this worthwhile and that all these costs would be borne by the taxpayers.
To repair the building will cost an estimated $1,322,100. New construction would cost $1,724.380. A third option had been proposed by Mayor Reid (which council supported), to put the building up for sale by tender.
The township also had the building appraised and this amount was $175,000.
Mr. Hobbs told The Expositor after last week’s meeting that the new owner of the building would be taking over the existing leases with Canada Post and the Bank of Montreal which expire in 2026 and 2028.
