30 May 2010

City Closes CP Station Deal

Owen Sound Mayor Ruth Lovell Stanners at the former CP railway station on the east side
of Owen Sound's harbour.

Owen Sound Ontario - It took nearly two years, but Owen Sound now owns the derelict former Canadian Pacific Railway station near the east harbour wall.
 
"It's finally happened. It's ours," Mayor Ruth Lovell Stanners said Friday in an interview in front of the brick-and-wood building.
 
Owen Sound purchased the vacant station and its property for $153,500, which will be paid over three years.
 
 

 

The ex-Canadian Pacific Railway station at Owen Sound.
 
 
The city plans to seek proposals from developers interested in transforming the 1940s station into a business.
 
"I think it's got terrific potential. I can envision lots of great uses here," Lovell Stanners said.
 
Steve Furness, manager of economic development, said the purchase and redevelopment of the property is part of the city's effort to improve Owen Sound's harbour area.
 
It follows the cleaning of former industrial land for the Grey Bruce Health Unit headquarters, a proposal by Mary Catherine McArthur to create an off-leash dog park just north of the old rail station, and plans for a new Owen Sound Family Health Team clinic on the harbour's west side.
 
The city first expressed an interest in buying the station in 2008. It conditionally purchased the property in January 2009.
 
Several developers have expressed an interest in buying the property over the past decade.
 
An environmental consultant hired by the city declared the site clean enough for commercial use in February 2009. He also declared the building to be structurally sound.
 
Hurdles in transferring the property from the federal government to the city delayed the deal from closing for 15 months. The closing deadline was extended several times.
 
Part of the challenge related to the building's national heritage protection. The city had to enter into a heritage easement agreement with the Ontario Heritage Trust before the deal closed. The city must protect certain features of the station forever.
 
Furness said the hurdles the city had to overcome are part of the reason the feds struggled to sell the property to a private developer. He said if the city had not purchased it, the old station would likely sit in its current state for decades.
 
Lovell Stanners said the first thing the city will do, as the station's new owners, is tidy up the land around it, which she called an "eyesore."
 
Denis Langlois.