Train station plan chugging along |
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Kevin Swayze HESPELER - Efforts to save the old CN railway station along Guelph Avenue dodged a bullet Wednesday. The Hespeler Heritage Railway Station Association wants to purchase the run-down building and restore it. Volunteer members have been negotiating with CN for nine months to buy it and arrange a lease of the land under it. But another CN division put plans forward recently to sell land immediately south of the station - with the new property line about a foot away from the station door. That would have made access to the station nearly impossible and restoration impractical, said Paul Langan, association chairman. "One CN division doesn't know what the other CN division is doing," he told the city's committee of adjustment. He argued against a severance application by CN to permit the sale of a 50-foot-wide strip of land beside the station - currently a railway siding - to neighbouring Conestoga Concept Ltd. The committee deferred the severance application at the request of CN, to give CN officials a chance to sort out exactly what it wants to do. Mr. Langan was happy to hear CN wanted time to deal with the station and land issues at the same time, since he understands CN may complete the station sale within as little as two weeks. Conestoga Concept owns the land to the south of the station, with a building at Guelph Avenue and Milling Street. Conestoga Concept owner Ken Buller said he had no intention of messing up restoration plans for the station by purchasing the railway siding. CN approached him about buying the land, he said. He wants the land so he can keep it vacant beside an existing parking lot behind his building. "We've got no problem with (station restoration plans). It's probably good for us," Mr. Buller said. The station association wants to get control of the 97-year-old building quickly, so stop-gap repairs can keep it standing for when restoration starts. C.A. Ventin Architects have examined the building and say it's restorable, but at a cost of $300,000 to $450,000. Once the association owns it, then fundraising will start, Mr. Langan said. |