Ponoka town council approved the sale of the Kinsmen Community Centre to Cash Foods Ltd. this morning, for $480,000 plus tax.

The sale came with three conditions: that the planned sale of the parking lot close concurrent with the sale of the building, that existing bookings be honoured to Dec. 31, with the closing date of the sale effective Jan. 1, 2019.

Cash Foods, which also owns the IGA Shopping Centre downtown, plans to renovate the building and use it for retail and office space.

Mayor Rick Bonnett said it was a decision that made money sense for the town, calling the price “fair.” He didn’t say if the town made money on the sale.

“It’s a win-win because we will pick up tax assessment and we will stop losing operating dollars and capital costs on repairing this building,” Bonnett said.

Council held the vote during a special electronic meeting after the buyers were in attendance for the regular meeting on Tuesday.

“We really wanted to make sure it got done this week because they were looking at some other property,” said the Mayor.

“If we weren’t going to sell it to them, they were actually going to pull the trigger on the other property and council decided they didn’t want to lose this deal because we’ve been working on this for about two-and-a-half years with these gentlemen.”

According to a briefing note from administration, the Kinsmen Community Centre was being used at about a third of its capacity between 2016 to 2018.

During that time, it was racking up operating deficits between $5,000 to $10,000.

However, Bonnett says the building has been a money loser since 2011 and needed major renovations if the town was going to keep it.

Meanwhile, the town identified many other buildings that community groups can rent to host events, including the Royal Canadian Legion, Ponoka Stampede Association’s Stagecoach Saloon, Ponoka Ag Events Centre and the Hudson’s Green Community Activity Centre.

The Kinsmen Centre is just one of a few “under-utilized” properties the town is hoping to divest.

Bonnett named a few others: a building located on quarter section in  the northwest side of town, the fire hall, recycling centre and other pieces of open land.

“They have been under-utilized for a few years,” he said. “We’ve got properties in certain places in town that if people are interested in them, we would like to move them because just sitting on property without a plan and without doing anything is not in town or taxpayer’s best interests.”