Due to the structure fires and resulting clean-up efforts the East Bayshore Bus will be detouring the St. Mary's Hill area until further notice.
The East Bayshore Bus will be traveling east on 10th Street East and north on 9th Avenue East to 27th Street East where it will resume its normal route. The East Bayshore Route had been using St. Mary's Hill due to the construction on 3rd Avenue East.
The East Bayshore route will revert ...
source: Media Release
The City of Owen Sound confirms fires at three locations in Owen Sound this morning.
Owen Sound Fire with the assistance of the Inter-township Fire Services and Chatsworth Fire Services are on the scene with EMS.
Some residents have been evacuated to the Bayshore Community Centre with the assistance of Red Cross and Victims Services.
There are several road closures - please avoid:
- 13th Street and 3rd Avenue ...
by Anne Finlay-Stewart, Hub Editor
The deal is sealed, the $10 cheque is cashed, and the old 1853 Courthouse and jail are the property of a private corporation for the first time in 162 years.
The Courthouse was sold once before to a developer in 1985 while the jail was still in use. That deal fell through, and the city made some repairs and leased the building to the Grey Bruce Arts Council, which in turn rented out office space and studios.
Flash forward thirty years. Priorities for the city have changed, and staff and council decisions reflect a different vision.
The timing of the May sale to Southbridge Care Homes is not insignificant. Our sources say that there was a previous offer from Southbridge, during the term of the former city council. It may have been one of the two mentioned by former city manager in a July 2014 radio interview. Presumably it was for more than $10, but that remains in the minutes of an in camera meeting as do the reasons it was not successful.
-by Anne Finlay-Stewart
The old Courthouse, jail and 1.3 acres of land on 3rd Avenue East has been officially sold to the Southbridge Care Homes division of Southbridge Capital for $10, tax included. The sale, announced in mid-May, closed July 30. A staff report on the sale is headed to city council Monday.
The 1853 building has served many purposes over its 162 year life – Courthouse for the County of Grey, the site of the inaugural Owen Sound council meeting, police headquarters, home of the Grey Bruce Arts Council, a performance space, offices and studios. Most recently, the Tom Thomson Art Gallery held a public meeting at which the Courthouse was named as the preferred site of an expanded gallery, made necessary in part by the need to move storage of the collection out of the basement to meet insurance requirements. In their detailed business plan, the Gallery listed the benefits to the city of that site choice beyond the adaptive re-use of the building, including "re-vitalizing a near-core neighbourhood that needs transformation". The City would be left with assets, the plan said - "two saleable properties: the Rice House and the current Art Gallery, together worth considerably more than the asking price for the Courthouse."
In his report on the Courthouse sale prepared for Council, Manager of Economic Development Steve Furness said that while there was no direct financial gain in the sale,
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