KAMSACK — The recent engineering report on the Crowstand Centre and Shop Easy building indicates significant concerns.
During a discussion of the monthly council meeting with the Kamsack Times and SaskToday, Kamsack administrator Barry Hvidston said, “A simple way of saying it is that Shop Easy is a tear-down. There's too much wrong with it, and it's a tear-down. Just the health and safety with the pigeons in there and everything else; it’s just not great.”
There is a number of issues with the Crowstand Centre as well, all indicated in the recently-received study that is about 160 pages. Hvidston said that to bring it up to present-day codes is going to cost an estimated $5.4 million, which doesn't include asbestos abatement or hiring an engineer to do the drawings.
“We were pretty much told that the electrical system has to be upgraded, the water system has to be upgraded, the furnace unit has to be upgraded, and the roof has to be redone. It has to be re-landscaped outside because every spring the water is running into the building instead of running away from the building. The walls above the doors have all separated,” Hvidston added.
“Because we have to do so much electrical, HVAC, and all these different mechanical items, that means the walls have to be torn apart, which means the walls have to be redone. It is a very expensive process, and in order for us to reopen the Crowstand Centre, they're estimating a minimum of 5.4 million. It'll be a decision of the new council whether to reopen or not.”
Mayor Brunt added, “It's extremely expensive for a building that was not revenue-positive in any way, shape, or form. It did house a lot of different things: the library, the court, the vet clinic, and the college used to be in there, among other things. Despite this, it was never a revenue-positive building. It always cost more than what was brought in.”
Hvidston noted that he plans to push long-term planning with this new council.
“We need to look at every building, every road, and every aspect of the town and start pre-planning for when things break down. That's what happened here: there wasn't a lot of planning, there wasn’t a lot of money put back into the Crowstand Centre, and eventually, it fell apart. We can say that about every single piece of infrastructure in the town,” he said.
Mayor Brunt added that a lot of communities are experiencing the same things with a lot of the infrastructure, including water lines, sewer lines, roads and pavement.
“Drive down any street in town pretty much, and there are spots that need new pavement. So infrastructure is something that really needs to be looked at and planned for,” Brunt said.
