City buys Somass Sawmill lands

The city had been trying to negotiate with Western since they announced the indefinite curtailment of the cedar mill 4 years ago.

Mayor Sharie Minions said the prospect of taking over the site was why she ran for mayor.

“The Somass Sawmill shutdown during my term on council and I saw it as an incredible opportunity for the future of the community to really go in a new, interntional direction and this was a key piece of me deciding to run for mayor was wanting to repurpose these lands,” she said.

Last month, the city announced they would be expropriating the waterfront industrial site, further pressuring WFP to negotiate a sale.

Minions said environmental consultants did extensive testing, and believe it will cost less than a million dollars to remediate the industrial lands.

“We’ve had a Stage 2 assessment preliminarily reviewed, and we are going to be hiring a contractor to help with the contamination and lead us through that process,” she said. “Our preliminary estimate is under a million dollars. It’s not a number that we came up with, it’s a number that’s been put together by professionals in the industry following the review of a Stage 2 assessment.”

5 waterfront properties totalling more than 50 acres was purchased for $5.3 million, which will come out of 4 different reserve accounts.

Mayor Minions said the city intends to keep the waterfront section of the mill site for the Quay-to-quay pathway and some parkland, but she envisions a mix of commercial, residential and light industrial uses for the bulk of the property.

“A diverse and mixed use site: one that sees public use for the waterfront, a mix of residential, commercial and light industrial, and a site that shows that we’re able to support industry and livibility, quality of life, and public access to the waterfront all in one place.”

With most of the equipment already removed from the long-shuttered sawmill, Minions said the city will probably demolish the buildings.