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The City of Bathurst has decided to hang on to the Old Post Office and work it into the overall waterfront development plan.

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File photo

The Old Post Office will serve as headquarters for this year's organizing commmitee for the Hospitality Days summer festival.

File photo

The Old Post Office will serve as the headquarters for this year's organizing commmitee for the Hospitality Days summer festival.

In the meantime, it's going to be Ground Zero for the organizing committee for this year's Bathurst summer festival, to be held in July.

"The Hospitality Days committee will take it over for their headquarters...for the summer," said Mayor Stephen Brunet.

"It's already agreed to. They'll be right downtown at the centre of things."

The stone heritage building had been for sale after its tenant, the Nepisiguit River Company outdoor store, relocated to St. Anne Street last year.

The structure, when vacant, costs the City of Bathurst about $10,000 annually in property taxes, heating, small repairs and insurance. Due to its age, however, the building is in need of serious repairs to the tune of $150,000.

Mayor Brunet said there were some prospective buyers, but no deal could be reached, especially in relation to how the city wanted the building's unique character retained.

Now, it's back to seeking another tenant while incorporating the building into plans for developing the downtown waterfront area, said the mayor.

"(City) council has agreed to...keep that post office as part of the downtown revitalization and the waterfront development," he said.

"We're going to look for a tenant. We've got some ideas but we're not going to jump the gun on that until we talk to some people and see what they think."

Concluded Mayor Brunet: "We're also going to start looking out there for monies under heritage, to see if there's anything there we can get to bump that building up to modern day standards."

Standing at the corner of Main Street and Douglas Avenue, the stone structure was built in 1889 and served as a post office for years before being turned into the armoury for the 2nd Batallion Royal New Brunswick Regiment.

The regiment moved in the early 1990s to the new C.L Gammon Armoury on Basin Avenue and the Nepisiguit River Company opened in the Old Post Office in 1997.

The Old Post Office was one of five New Brunswick properties recognized in the 1992 Canadian Register of Heritage Properties.