Altona Town Council is shelving plans to renovate the old library space in Golden West Plaza.
The plan was to transform it into some town offices, along with a few incubator offices and a meeting room available for short-term rent.
Related Stories:
However, Mayor Harv Schroeder says the plan was scrapped during recent budget deliberations.
"It was clear that some things would need to be taken off the list," he explained. "At this time, we felt, for the funds that we would have to put in, that that money would be better spent, this year, somewhere else. There are definitely areas where we look and say, what's most important?"
While the money hasn't been redirected to any specific project or expense, Schroeder says there are some reserve accounts that need to be built up for future items.
"We didn't want to add tax dollars where we didn't need to at this time. So, we felt it best to take it off the table for now. It gives administration a better chance at knowing what they have in front of them to make decisions on all of the other things we need to take care of."
"If we would have put office space in there and someone would've come in and said that wasn't what they needed, then we may have spent money for no reason," added Schroeder.
In the meantime, the space remains vacant and for sale. Schroeder says there is also the option for a tenant to lease or rent it from the Town.
