MANITOWANING—Assiginack township ratepayers are being asked to put their names forward to help the township complete a study on possible future uses for the Roller Mills building on the Manitowaning waterfront.
“I brought this one up because I would like to see options being brought forward on absolutely everything that is needed to be done for the Roller Mills building to be useable,” stated Mayor Brenda Reid at a council meeting last week. “The study will be done to see what options there are for use of the building instead of just letting it sit there as it is. It looks terrible. We need to do something with it.”
Council passed a motion giving its approval for township office staff to advertise for ratepayers to put their names forward toward striking an ad hoc Roller Mills sub-committee to review future options for the building.
Mayor Reid told The Expositor after the council meeting, “We are looking for a couple of people in the community who, along with myself and another councillor, will look at everything that needs to be done to bring it back up to usable status and options that it could be used for.”
“If there is nothing available option wise and it is too expensive then we would have to look at it coming down,” said Mayor Reid. “But we want to explore all options first.” She pointed out the building is in good shape structurally.
As has been reported previously, the township is asking for the museum and Burns Wharf Theatre to remove all materials from the building by the end of May. However, “the museum is working on removing all the items, but to decommission all the pieces takes time and lots of work to remove. Council may end up giving the museum an extension.”
“It will probably take about a year before the study is complete and the committee is ready to bring a proposal forward to council,” added Mayor Reid.
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