Late last year it looked like the Huntsville Lake of Bays Chamber of Commerce would be heading for new digs soon, but those plans are on hold after a conditional offer on the building fell through.
That happens in real estate, of course, but the offer was complicated by the public washrooms on site. Currently, the Town has an agreement with the Chamber to maintain the public washrooms, pay the costs of the utilities associated with the washrooms, and plow the adjacent parking lot, according to the Chamber’s executive director, Kelly Haywood.
As a condition of the sale the potential purchaser wanted to maintain that agreement with the Town, said Haywood. Initially, the Town said no to maintaining the parking lot but then in closed session on December 21 decided they would maintain it after all but wanted the purchaser to look after utility costs associated with the washrooms. The Town also wanted to extend the lease agreement for that space, which began in 2009, from 20 years to 30.
“Because that didn’t meet the requirements of the conditional offer we were given, the deal fell through,” said Haywood. “The building is still on the market and we are accepting offers. It isn’t imperative for the purchaser to operate the washrooms. We would just need to pay the municipality out on the lease, which is approximately $75,000. But our hope was that it would be win-win – we would be able to sell the building, and they would continue to operate the washrooms which are very popular because of our location.” There is no guarantee that the next offer will come from a purchaser willing to operate the washrooms, added Haywood.
Haywood said the Chamber has several possible new locations in mind but that they can’t make any decisions until the building has sold. The Chamber’s AGM will be held January 28 and she hopes to have a plan in place by then. In the meantime, the Town’s support of the Chamber is at the forefront of her thoughts.
“Right now we are working on trying to lobby our municipal government to continue to support the efforts of our community marketing campaign as well as our tourism services fee for service which during their budget deliberations seems to be iffy at best,” said Haywood. “While the Chamber has seen a couple of unfortunate losses in the last couple of years, previous to that we had an amazing eight-year track record and we continue to bring in a ton of business and events. Should the town not continue to support the Chamber, the loss will be for the business community. What we’ve tried to pull together just won’t happen any more. This (tourism) climate is very fragile and there are businesses who would suffer without that extra push for our community. It’s such an unbelievably competitive market that we can’t just sit back on our laurels and hope they’ll come. There are way too many (other communities) out there after the same tourist.”
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