Council to look at former Peavey building for town hall

Jeff Helsdon, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

A new option has been thrown into the mix of potential sites for Tillsonburg’s new town hall.

Deputy Mayor Dave Beres presented a motion at the April 28 meeting to explore the feasibility of the former Peavey Mart site at 121 Concession St. E. as a potential site for a new town hall. This is in addition to investigating sites at the existing customer service centre at 10 Lisgar Ave. and a site on the corner of Brock and Harvey Streets. The motion, which Coun. Chris Rosehart seconded, also approved up to $30,000 in funding to look at an environmental site assessment, building condition and a preliminary floor plan.

Speaking to the motion and a guideline from a prior committee looking at the town hall, which recommended that it be in the downtown, Beres said, “This isn’t in the downtown, but it is within one kilometre of it.”

Coun. Kelly Spencer asked about the status of a report municipal staff was working on about the other two sites. CAO Kyle Pratt said staff received preliminary drawings a few days earlier and will have a report in the second meeting in May.

Development director Cephas Panschow said he is familiar with the site from being a Peavey customer. He said while it’s attractive at face value, being roughly the right size and having a good-sized lot, it is outside downtown. His quick math was that with the $3.8 million price on the building and renovations at $486 per square foot, which was the price of renovations of the customer service centre and may be high, and repaving the parking lot, the cost could hit $16 million.

“I’m not sure this is the optimial solution, not withstanding the price, but of course we’ll find that out if we explore that further,” he said. “The question is does it make sense for council to direct us to so considering we have other direction from council on the books.”

Coun. Pete Luciani asked if all the money needed to be spent at once if it was found early on that it wasn’t acceptable. Panshow said the investigation doesn’t need to be completed all at once.

Coun. Bob Parsons said he supports investigating the property, but not spending the money until a review is completed by senior staff.

“I won’t support it as written but as a two-step process,” he said. “Before we spend the $30,000 to have the experts review this site, we have talent in our staff. We need to see is the space suitable, what are the pros and cons of this building, and then putting it in the mix.”

Beres agreed somewhat with Parsons’ point, saying the spending is “up to”.

When a vote was called on the resolution, it passed with Parsons and Spencer voting against it.