Almost 10 years after the Timmins Industrial Park was put on the market, the city is selling the first property at the site.
At this week's meeting, city council approved selling a 1.05-acre piece of land directly to Blais Capital Inc. for $43,691 plus HST.
In April 2010, the 86-acre McBride Street North property was declared surplus to the needs of the municipality.
“At that time we offered it for public sale and, unfortunately, there were no takers and we didn’t sell any of the property," explained Marc Jensen, director of community and development services.
"But since that time, staff have erected signs along McBride Street advertising the property for sale and it appears that we’re now in the process of having our first lot sold in the industrial park."
Coun. John Curley and Coun. Noella Rinaldo questioned if the agreement included a timeline for when a building would have to go up.
While it doesn't, Jensen said his understanding is the person wants to move ahead with a new building sooner rather than later.
“In this case...we’ve been trying to sell land in the industrial park with no conditions and we haven’t had much luck over the last...nine years or so,” Jensen said.
“Under those circumstances, the community development committee felt it was just appropriate to attempt to get one sale through and hopefully that will promote others from looking at considering our industrial park as a location for their new business as well.
"They haven’t been knocking down our doors to buy properties is what I’m saying, so it’d be nice to get something started in this particular part of our park.”
This story originally appeared on TimminsToday.com.
