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371 Arthur St. S., ELMIRA, ON | 519-669-3232 Ontario's #1 Weekly Community Newspaper
AUGUST 11, 2022
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Elmira, Ontario, Canada | observerxtra.com | Volume 27 | Issue 31
240
Business | 9
Rezoned Conestogo mill property back on the market Leah Gerber Observer Staff
THE OLD MILL SITE IN Conestogo, which could be redeveloped into an event space, is now up for sale or lease. After a multi-year process to change the zoning to allow for a commercial space, the owners have now put the properties at 1795 and 1805 Sawmill Rd. back on the market. The planning report submitted to the township outlines a plan to operate the site as an event venue, but the owners say they never intended to operate the venue themselves. “The mill is a unique property that we believed if converted to commercial use would benefit the core in Conestogo. The vision was to preserve the unique characteristics of the property, renovate the mill itself, and then partner with folks with a vision for its eventual use,” said Chris Waters, one of the properties’ owners, in an email to The Observer. “It was never our intention to run the venue ourselves,” he said. “The pandemic did not change
this. It did cause delays, but we are still on course,” he said. The two properties are being sold together with an asking price of nearly $3.5 million as listed on realtor.ca. Included on the two properties of some 3.5 acres is a 19th century, 3,200 squarefoot, three-storey-house, which was last used as an office space, two metal silos, a 13,000-sq.-ft. multi-storey building with a 2,200-sq.ft. below-grade usable space and multiple outbuildings. The owners’ report submitted to the municipality includes the possibility of two separate event centres, the potential for a distillery in the future, a plan to use the house as an office building, and to convert one of the outbuildings into a chapel, among other features. There were also provisions for storage and parking. Jeremy Vink, the manager of planning for the township, confirmed the properties are now zoned with site-specific ‘settlement commercial’ (C-3) zoning. He wrote the staff report → MILL 5
The new core urban design study for downtown Elmira will be discussed by Woolwich council Aug. 22.
Bill Atwood
New plan, new design goals for downtown Elmira Bill Atwood Observer Staff
AN OVERHAUL OF ELMIRA’S DOWNTOWN has taken another small step forward. The final report of Elmira’s core urban design study was released last week ahead of a council discussion later this month. The plan developed by
Toronto-based consultants The Planning Partnership encompasses the area of Elmira from approximately Centre Street to Dunke Street and from Riverside Drive to South Street. While this is a long term-plan, there’s no firm timeline for implementing the suggestions, which was intentional, says Woolwich’s director
of development services, Deanne Friess. “The Arthur Street reconstruction that the region is working on next year will be the first thing that we’ll focus on for this plan so that we can time it at the same time as the road is going to be torn up. Then we can also do improvements to that area aligned with this plan.
Other than that, we will introduce different budget elements each year to the council and see what council wants to support doing depending on that year,” Friess explained. “It will take time to implement all these suggestions, but you have to have a plan in place in order to start somewhere. → DOWNTOWN 5
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