Riff's bid fails
Canso co-op sees deal slip away
CANSO - A bid by five local business people to buy the old Riff's department store in Canso came to a dramatic and unexpected end late last week when an unknown buyer suddenly purchased the property.
The business people - including deputy mayor Barry Lumsden and Stanfest founder Troy Greencorn - had formed a co-operative, secured funding assistance from several government departments and were in the advanced stages of protracted negotiations to purchase the former clothing store.
Late last week, they received the bad news.
The identity of the building's new owner or owners remained unknown late Tuesday.
The sale of the building was brought up at Monday night's regular council meeting. Councillor Fin Armsworthy and Mayor Ray White both expressed their disappointment that the bid - which is understood to have included plans to open a "dollar store" and several other specialty shops and employ up to eight people - had apparently come undone at the eleventh hour.
"There had been a co-operative formed to purchase the building and develop it as a retail, multi-use building," White told The Journal.
"Over the last while there have been negotiations with various provincial and federal agencies to secure funding. (The co-op) made an offer to purchase the building…but dealing with government agencies takes time. In the interim my understanding is that Mr. Riff may have received a counter offer, which he accepted. All that happened in a very short time period."
White understood that the co-op made a counter offer that was also rejected. He stressed that the council had no connection to the deal and that Lumsden's involvement in the proposed deal was purely as a member of the co-op.
Lumsden did not return a call from The Journal on Tuesday.
Armsworthy, meanwhile, said the whole affair was shrouded in "secrecy."
"I'm quite disappointed because it seems like it was on the table for so long and it seemed like there was so much secrecy throughout the whole deal," he said. "Here in council, you know, 'We can't mention this, we can't mention that' and throughout the community there was the same feeling.
"It's hard for the citizens of the community to stay up to date on things they're not really involved in. We, as council, should be brought up to snuff on a lot of these things to know what the impact is for the citizens of the community.
"We're still not sure who the tenants (will be). It's all just rumours. Rumours go rampant in a small community and people are tired of that. People want sustainable jobs."
