Duane Hicks
The town has received a couple expressions of interest in the old public library building, and currently is investigating the possibility they received more.
Fort Frances CAO Mark McCaig said this morning the local Evangelical Fellowship Church and Fort Frances Community Clinic both submitted bids for the vacant building, located on the southwest corner of Church Street and Victoria Avenue.
But he added the town recently had computer issues—its e-mail has been down for two days—and it’s possible there’s more bids.
“We’ve had a server crash on our e-mail, so we have to see if one came in on the Tuesday just before the meeting,” noted McCaig.
“We want to make sure that there was nothing else that we missed.”
The deadline to submit a bid was 4 p.m. on Tuesday.
Once all the bids are ascertained, McCaig said they will be reviewed by council and that the evaluation period “will be a while yet.”
He noted they will “evaluate the expressions as they were put forward, how they fit into aspects of community needs,” as stipulated in the request for expressions of interest the town first advertised in late March.
McCaig said it’s in the interest of the town to find a new owner for the property.
“We do not want to have a bunch of buildings that are left unused, especially one that has got some cultural and historical significance in the town and has been well-maintained,” he explained.
“It’s a building that should be used in the future.
“And there’s a whole other dynamic that goes with having an empty building in terms of security and care,” McCaig added.
“It’s better to have people occupying buildings than leaving them empty,” he stressed.
