North Battleford city council has voted to abandon plans to acquire the old CN railway station property.
The decision to abandon the project, and inform CN of that decision, came following the latest report on the negotiations with CN for the building.
“It’s turned into a bit of a snowball of costs and concerns,” said Director of Planning and Development Jennifer Niesink Monday.
“What we’re recommending is that we pull this project from the roster and start working with CN about fixing up their building and not allowing it to crumble in the downtown, but not actually taking it on as a city.”
City officials had seen purchasing the old property as a way to rehabilitate the aging station, which has been left to deteriorate by CN. The idea was discussed during budget deliberations last fall.
But after further discussions between the city and CN, administration was far less enthusiastic about the project.
“We’ve reached a few points that I think bring us to an impasse,” said Niesink.
Cost was a concern. While $200,000 was set aside in the 2019 budget for the acquisition and initial study of the building, costs of bringing it back to a usable state could have gone much higher.
There is “a lot of money that could be put into this building,” said Niesink. “There’s water that’s been sitting in there for a long time, which we knew, which could work out to be quite a bit of cost.”
Another stumbling block was contamination. Niesink reported CN was agreeable to allowing the city to pay for environmental testing, provided the reports were directed first to CN, at which point they would determine whether they were willing to share the reports with the city.
City officials balked at that demand.
The third stumbling block was a demand by CN for fencing that would eliminate a “significant portion of the site,” according to Niesink’s memo to council, and which would have blocked the site’s main entrance.
According to Niesink, the initial idea had been to retain a few “stalls” CN was building, have some partial fencing, and have access to the CN building. But, according to city officials, CN wanted an eight-foot fence across the lot just east of the building, cutting off public access at the 101st Street intersection. The only access would be the one nearer to the North Battleford Provincial Courthouse. Parking at the site would also be minimized as a result.
Council agreed with Niesink’s recommendation to abandon the idea of purchasing the building. But concern remained about the state of the CN station structure.
Mayor Ryan Bater suggested keeping up with efforts to have CN address the condition of the building.
“We ought to be having a conversation with our elected Member of Parliament about the condition of that building and its importance to the community,” said Bater, and the “need for CN to ensure it’s in a reasonable state, not something that’s going to be continually degrading and coming into even poorer repair than it normally is.”
