Melfort looking to preserve old post office

“So we’re going to have $100,000 that we’re going to put towards, I guess I’ll say securing the building so there’s no more deterioration that happens. Eventually what will happen is we’ll be buying that building from Avatex and at that point in time we will be reimbursing them for their funds that they’re forwarding at this point in time,” Lang said.

Mayor Lang said the long-term plan is to look for other funding avenues to rehabilitate the building and maybe find some future use for it within the community.

The decision to fund the $50,000 was made during their capital budget process in Dec. 2012.

Melfort has a 10-year capital plan that they work on every year, they solidify the current year’s spending and they also look at next nine years out.

“We kind of put preliminary projects into the next nine years, and then next year at this time we’ll solidify the current year and update the next nine years out. So we’re always looking at a 10-year capital plan,” Land said.
“But what we’re doing on an annual basis is committing to the current year’s expenditures and this $50,000 is part of the 2013 capital budget.”

The money will be used to prevent further damage to the building from weather and exterior forces, the city will be installing a new furnace to put some heat back into the building and there will be some exterior work as well to make sure issues like leaking are dealt with.

Lang said it’s still too early to know what will be going into the space.

“We haven’t actually committed to anything, we’ve looked at some preliminary numbers and some preliminary, very, very early ideas as to what could be done. One of the suggestions, for an example, was that maybe you could put some office space down below and put some condos up-top. But I mean that was just an idea that was tossed around, and there hasn’t been any further work done on that. ” Lang said.

“What, I guess, our next step will be after we kind of stop any further deterioration will be to check out potential government grants because it has been designated now as a municipal heritage site. So that will open up some potential avenues for grant applications to get some money to deal with the refurbishing issue.”

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by Sarah Wallace

Melfort looking to preserve old post office

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