Council votes to take next step with potential move to downtown mall

Believing there is too much potential with the opportunity, Chatham-Kent councilors voted to further consider moving the civic center — as well as the library and museum — into a portion of the Downtown Chatham Centre.

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A staff report presented Monday night outlined a number of options, including doing nothing, renovating current facilities, building new, or relocating to the mall.

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Administration had recommended that council move forward with either Option 2, the renovation of the existing civic center, or Option 5, which was pursuing the purchase of a portion of the mall and relocating.

In the spring of 2021, the downtown mall’s ownership group, including Rob Myers, Pete and Jessica Tsirimbis, Ron Nydam, Don Tetrault and Jim Bullock, announced the redevelopment plan.

In the summer of 2022, council approved a recommendation to proceed with investigating the feasibility of purchasing part of the property.

Although a detailed design is still required, the high-level cost is estimated at $53 million, according to Monday’s report. This includes taxes less rebate, land purchase price, architectural and engineering consultation, contract administration, 15 per cent contingency, and 15 per cent material and labor escalation due to inflation.

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The report added the investors have now revised their offer to exclude the parking garage and lowered the purchase price accordingly to $2,950,000 for the former Sears building only, including the design drawings.

Under this option, the municipality could potentially use the sale proceeds of the existing civic center and Chatham library branch, should council wish to divest these properties. The total appraised value for these properties is $9,356,000.

“Once we have all the details, it will come back with a costing,” Mayor Darrin Canniff said after the meeting. “That’s when we get the final blessing. If it comes back and it’s a hundred million, we’re going to have to rethink it. But I fully expect that it’s going to come in around what we estimated.”

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The terms would include a mandatory buy-back provision of the property at the same negotiated sale price by the investor group should the municipality decide not to proceed with a redevelopment for municipal purposes within 18 months from the time of a final transaction.

As part of the recommendation, administration will also report back, as soon as possible, with an action plan and funding source to address the various concerns identified in the building condition assessment for the existing civic center.

Monday’s recommendation passed 11-5.

The report noted “the costs to renovate the former Sears building are not fully known at this time and will not be fully known until completion of a competitive bid process for this work.”

Canniff called it exciting that the potential project would include a 35,000-square-foot library and a “much larger museum,” believing the facility would revitalize the downtown core.

This story will be updated.

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