By Cecilia Nasmith
Following this week's news of a $515,000 repair required to the former county building at 860 William St., Cobourg, Northumberland County has provided historic information about the building and its origins.
A powerful lesson on the impact of inflation is evident, when you look at the fact that the building's original construction was awarded to the lowest tender (Omstead and Parker of Hamilton, Ont.) on their price of $373,800 in October 1955. Construction began later that year, and it appears to have been completed in 1957.
The work contemplated at this week's meeting of county council's Public Works Committee involves a 1982 addition (which can be seen outlined in red in an aerial photo supplied by the county). This 4,200-sq.-ft. addition brought the building's area to a total of more than 47,000 sq. ft.
As reported this week, structural repairs are necessary to address leaky windows and doors that open only with difficulty before the situation deteriorates further. Because the engineering work done on this project indicates structural repairs and brick replacement are also necessary, the size of the project far exceeded the original $260,000 budget.
Should county council decide to proceed with the lowest bid from Brook Restorations Ltd. (which was nonetheless the highest-ranking bid as well), work can begin on replacing 14 various-sized windows and two doors, structural repairs to the window and door lintels, and the replacement of brickwork on a wall area of approximately 3,500 sq. ft.
The hope was to start the work and complete it before winter.
With county departments vacating the building several years ago in order to move to the newly constructed one just around the corner at 555 Courthouse Rd., 860 William St. now serves as a headquarters for local court services. Prior to that, it housed some court services as well as county offices. Even farther back in time, it was home to the Haliburton Kawartha Pine Ridge District Health Unit before their Port Hope location was built at 200 Rose Glen Rd.
