Council has approved to sell the city-owned museum property for $350,000 to inSite Housing, Hospitality and Health Services to develop a 72-care bed facility.
“This has been going on for a while now,” Mayor Walt Cobb said as council discussed the issue during its regular meeting Tuesday. “We talked about this in October and we are getting to the final stages and have a solid offer.”
Coun. Scott Nelson said the city will set up a reserve account and part of the proceeds from the land sale will go toward the museum’s relocation cost.
Council has directed staff to facilitate the move and work very closely with the museum, its board of directors and volunteers to assist them to be up and running in the temporary location, Nelson said.
At its March 24 meeting council passed a resolution to look at the bigger picture on what the long-term opportunities with a bigger museum, a theater, the historic 153 Mile Store and trails, he added.
“This has come on us very quickly, but it’s on opportunity to capitalize on our museum and our heritage,” Nelson said. “Presently we get about 1,200 to 1,300 guests through the museum. We think that we can extract that out by finding a better location … one that’s really going to highlight heritage in our community.”
Tourism Discovery Centre executive assistant Jaylyn Byer said Thursday the TDC had more than 25,000 visitors in 2016 and 22,000 in 2015.
Council also asked staff to amend the city’s fee-for-service agreement with the museum to account for its relocation to the TDC.
A public meeting was planned for Thursday, May 11 at city hall to discuss the logistics of the move and it was expected that lots of people would attend, said museum president George Atamanenko Thursday morning.
