New life for Melfort’s century old post office

Brent Lutz, community development manager for the city, said Melfort was chosen as one of the program’s accredited communities last year.

“The post office building is located right in the heart of our revitalization zone so that makes it a great location for this office,” said Lutz.

The city also has plans for further rehabilitation work on the building this summer after completing work on the roof and rain drainage system last year.

“This year we hope to begin repairs to the damaged masonry exterior. We’re looking at removing and replacing damaged bricks and also looking at ways to restore the original finish to the brick and stone on the exterior of the building,” Lutz explained.

Because of the age of the post office, repairs to the building will be ongoing as long as the structure is standing.

Lutz said they often undertake the most urgent work, like repairing the roof last year to help stop future water damage to the building.

All of the work so far has been primarily on the exterior and the city “really hasn’t addressed any of the interior needs of the building,” Lutz said.

“For occupancy there certainly [are needs] for better washrooms, accessibility, a better heating and electrical system in the building and so forth.”

He said those things will come as the city finds purpose for the space and will be doing just that for the MainStreet headquarters.

Lutz expects the headquarters to use less than a quarter of the building once they move in, which means they won’t be the only organization to eventually end up there.

The city is hoping to use the building for community rentals for groups and organizations as well, which Lutz said is “a different venue then maybe what [is] presently available at the Kerry Vickars Center.”

Lutz said once the Main Street organization is in place they would be able to help facilitate the entrance of other businesses or groups into the building.

“Once we’ve got occupants in the building then it’s a lot easier for us to manage the rest of the space, for instance letting renters in and out and providing for their needs. [But] right now we don’t have any staffing in the building so it’s very difficult to have temporary rentals if you’re not present there,” he explained.

He said the city is also looking at leasing out a portion of the building to a commercial interest, be it for office space or retail space.

“We kind of envision that that’s probably going to be one of the directions that we’ll be looking at as well.”

When it comes to funding Lutz said they get some from the city, “Our plan has always been when we get funding from the city to put towards the building is we try to find matching funds through some form of grant that might be available for that type of building or for the projects we’re undertaking.”

The city has applied for funding for the exterior work of the building through a number of grant streams.

“The Saskatchewan Heritage Foundation was a big supporter of our last project and we got matching funds from them and we’re hopeful we’ll be able to get funds through them again this year.”

They have also applied through the MainStreet Grant Program for a Heritage Conservation Grant which would help with the exterior work, the city should get word on that grant within the next week.

Lutz said the city is hopeful.

“[Another] project we would really like to undertake is some interior renovations to put in handicap accessible washrooms in the building and possibly a licensed kitchen facility. That would make the building more usable for [other] groups [and] for us to rent [it] out for events.”

According to Lutz the city doesn’t currently have a facility that has a licensed kitchen where people can prepare meals.

“We have a serving kitchen at the Kerry Vickars Centre so this would be just another option and we think it would be useful in the long term. We’re always conscious of the work that we’re doing when we don’t know exactly what the long term use is, that we don’t want to spend dollars that we would in the end have to rip out a lot of it for future use.”

He said the accessible washrooms and kitchen are a major part of the upgrades no matter what the building is being used for.

“That’s a project we’re hopeful to be able to move forward with. We do have some support through local community groups that are taking a look at fundraising projects to start raising funds for the interior renovations to provide washrooms and [a] kitchen.”

swallace@panow.com

On Twitter: @sarahthesquid

by Sarah Wallace

New life for Melfort’s century old post office

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