New offers for Eastgate

The fate of the old Eastgate Hotel is on hold for at least another few weeks.

At a meeting last night, City Councillors decided to wait until September 13 to make a decision on which of three offers to buy the former hotel at 874 Queen Street Ease they will accept, if any.

Two of the offers were received just yesterday.

Anna Yurkevich and Walter Jakubsky offered $25,000, plus up to $2,000 to cover City legal fees on the condition that the property be rezoned to residential.

That condition will not cut muster with the City's legal staff. "A municipality cannot, as a condition of a sale of property, guarantee that it (the municipality) will rezone the property," says City Solicitor Lorie Bottos.

Yurkevich and Jakubsky are proposing to turn the old hotel into low income housing.

Robert Berto Jr. also put in an offer to purchase the building and did not indicate what he proposed to do with it should his offer be accepted.

His offer, said Bottos, is $17,000 and it expires September 17.

Last week, Tomasso Petrucci sweetened an earlier offer, this time removing a request that the City not assess taxes against the property for the remainder of 2010 and all of 2011.

Petrucci offered $5,000, plus up to $1,000 in legal fees to transfer it to his name.

He's promising to move to the Sault from Belleville, Ontario to extensively renovate the property to create low-income residential units.

All three prospective buyers will be invited to present their plans for the building and answer questions from City Council at a meeting on September 13.

Councillors also discussed the possibility of imposing conditions on a sale of the property that would compel the purchaser to bring it up to building code standards within a defined time.

No decision was reached on that issue at last night's meeting, but councillors did decide not to accept any more offers on the property.

"Council didn't think it would be fair to accept other offers now that the current offers have been made public," Bottos said.

Some councillors expressed anger over the unusual publicity given to the Eastgate offers, one of which was announced by Ward 4 Councillor Lorena Tridico.

Purchase offers are usually submitted in confidence to the City solicitor.

Assessed value of the building is $254,000.

Cost of demolition is estimated to be around $250,000.

The tax sale property is considered by Bottos to be an eyesore in its current condition.