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Hall property up for sale

A for-sale sign has appeared on the North Canoe Hall, but potential purchasers won’t be buying it for the building.
North Canoe Hall
Damage: John Lund points out where the foundation is sinking away from the wall at the North Canoe Hall.

A for-sale sign has appeared on the North Canoe Hall, but potential purchasers won’t be buying it for the building.

John Lund, a director of the North Canoe Community Association, says the hall is so far into disrepair that it will have to be demolished and the association is selling the hall as land only.

Lund says assessments on the building indicated it would take upwards of $250,000 to upgrade the building to code.

“And that just covers what they could see,” he told the Observer. “The whole front of the building is completely rotten, the building is leaning 12 inches to one side. There’s dry rot – in the men’s washroom you could literally fall through the floor, there’s so much rot underneath.”

The situation with the hall was complicated by the status of the association, which had lapsed as a non-profit society, leaving the asset of the hall in a kind of legal ownership limbo. But, Lund says, this situation has now been rectified.

BC Registry Services confirmed the society is currently in good standing.

“I’ve spent $3,000 to get our status redone, so we can go do something with it,” says Lund, who adds the association plans to sell the land, distribute the revenue to local charities and then formally dissolve the association.

He says any fixtures inside the building, like appliances or kitchen equipment, will be distributed to needy families.

“No one’s making any money off this.”

The list price for the property is $80,000.

Lund says attempts were made to sell the hall for $1 to a number of different community groups including the cadets and another Canoe-based group, but the high cost of upgrading the hall, in addition to the utilities costs and liability, made it unworkable.

“Even at the price of $1, no one could afford to do it,” he says.

Lund says he also offered to give the hall to the City of Salmon Arm, but says council voted against it, due to the costs and liability associated with it.

The Observer attempted to confirm this with city hall, but Mayor Nancy Cooper and Chief Administrative Officer Carl Bannister refused to comment. Property transactions involving the city are mandated to be in-camera (not public).