The City of Port Alberni is nearly finished with the demolition of the former Somass Sawmill site.
“We’ve come a lot farther than we anticipated,” finance manager Andrew McGifford told city council during a meeting on Monday, Nov. 13. “We’ve received quite a bit of salvage funding from the work that’s been done on the site. It’s enabled us to offset the cost of the work that’s being done.”
As of Nov. 7, the city had removed seven large structures from the site while maintaining a positive budget of around $120,000. Throughout the project, the city has been repurposing, selling and salvaging materials from the site, with the proceeds going back into city reserves. Some of the materials have been saved for future city projects.
McGifford told council that the city is looking at some “higher risk” items now, including asbestos remediation. Council agreed to allocate $550,000 from the Land Sale Reserve Fund to complete the rest of the demolition. However, the Land Sale Reserve Fund does not have the funding required.
“But it will once we have a couple sales materialize,” said McGifford.
In the meantime, the city will be using internal borrowing from the Water Infrastructure Reserve Fund until property sales or salvage sales replenish the Land Sale Reserve Fund.
“This will set us up to complete all the work that we need to undertake at this time,” said McGifford. He said the city is anticipating more revenue from the demolition, but added that this is not guaranteed.
Council authorized plans to complete the remaining demolition at the Somass Lands, although councillor Cindy Solda admitted that she was uncomfortable with the internal borrowing.
“I feel uncomfortable with a zero balance in the Land Reserve,” she said.
A few buildings will remain on site for the city’s development partner in the Somass Lands project. The city has not announced its development partner yet, but says an announcement will be coming “soon.”