Central Frontenac Buys Two School Properties

Jeff Green | Dec 02, 2015

Central Frontenac Township and the Limestone District School Board have come to terms over the sale of the former Hinchinbrooke School (Parham) and Sharbot Lake Public School properties.

After an in camera session at the end of their regular Council meeting on November 24, Central Frontenac Council passed a motion in public session authorizing the two purchases. The price of the two properties was not included in the motion, and will be released at a later date.

Mayor Frances Smith said the township and the school board have been in negotiations for several months about the township buying the Sharbot Lake School property, and at the last minute the school board brought Hinchinbooke school into the picture.

“When we had just about come to terms over the Sharbot Lake School property, the board asked us if we would consider looking again at the Hinchinrooke School property. When we had looked at it earlier, the board was asking for $220,000 and we were not interested in paying that much. Since that time it had gone onto the open market and the price had dropped. We made them an offer for it, and this time they accepted it,” she said.

In order to buffer the township's budget, the closing date for the Sharbot Lake School was the end of November, 2015, and for Hinchinbrooke it is the end of November, 2016.

“We have unspent money from township projects this year which we can put to the Sharbot Lake School, and we will budget for the Hinchinbrooke sale in 2016. Even though the closing for Hinchinbrooke is set for the end of next year, the School Board has agreed to grant us access to the property before then,” Smith said.

Smith did not rule out the township taking out a loan to pay for the two purchases.

She said that there are no fixed plans for either site, but Council has talked about the potential for senior's housing for the Sharbot Lake site, and a central location for a township garage at the Parham site.

“We will go to the public for ideas about what the best use will be for the two properties,” she said.

The township is not interested in taking on any major ongoing costs for property maintenance, she added, so any proposed use for either property will need a firm business plan before council will seriously consider it.

Frontenac County has a goal of establishing a five unit senior's housing complex in each of the Frontenac Townships, and has some money set aside to facilitate that.

Central Frontenacs currently has two township garages up and running, one at the Olden Waste site on Highway 7 near Mountain Grove, and the other on Road 38, 10 km south of Parham.

Both sites have relatively new salt and sand storage domes.