The Belleville company that purchased Memorial Arena and Legion Branch 99 buildings this week is already looking at what comes next.
Taskforce Engineering Director of Engineering Hilary Murphy tells Quinte News both buildings will be maintained.
Once the $900,000 purchase from the city is completed, the company will start checking out retail options for Memorial and housing options for the Legion building.
Murphy says, for Memorial this means something not competing with the Farmers Market.
Murphy continued, “What anchor tenants will make sense in there, approach those retailers and get a better understanding of their needs and requirements to help plan out that space, and design and make sure it’s appropriate for these uses … microbrewery would suit the building well and would be in keeping with the more rustic area (near the market).”
For the Legion, it’s a question of what kind of housing is needed right now.
“We need to understand what, if any, funding opportunities may be coming available and be there for us to apply for. It is a funding application that needs to be processed through the (provincial) ministry program and Hasting County is the service manager for that program. Maybe there isn’t a situation where there’s a funding opportunity coming available right away. It might be six months out so we need to initiate those discussions with the county, find out what is available,” she added.
Timing is a big question.
Murphy says the company would like to begin construction moves as soon as possible.
“We’d like to start as quickly as possible. A number of factors need to be planned out in order to put a shovel in the ground in 2020. It would be ideal to start construction, but six months of due diligence planning is needed to go forward. Depends on retailers … love to be in the ground this calendar year.”
