Springhill finds a home for new community college dorm

A new residence for students at the Cumberland campus of the Nova Scotia Community College (NSCC) will be built on the site of the town's current fire hall, once the department moves into its new home next year.

The province announced last fall it would fund the construction of new dorms for NSCC campuses in Halifax, Kentville, Bridgewater and Springhill.

The Springhill project hit a snag earlier this year when the community pushed back against the site that was chosen — a public park.

Hundreds of locals contacted politicians and started a petition to plead for the park to be left as it is.

The petition described the park as a beloved community hub where kids play, and where a memorial was erected just last year for a young man from the community who died.

The idea was scrapped and the town, college and province went back to the drawing board.

On Thursday, the Municipality of Cumberland announced in a news release that it is selling a property on Main Street to the province for the student residence.

The property is the current site of the Springhill Fire Department, which is slated to move out once a new fire hall is completed.

Cumberland Mayor Murray Scott said council voted to declare the property surplus this week. He said a sale and purchase agreement has now been signed by the town and the province.

A condition of the sale allows the fire department to stay in place until the new station is ready. The move is expected to happen as soon as February 2025, according to Scott.

He said he's pleased a suitable site was found.

"There's limited vacancy in this area. It's like everywhere, housing is very, very much at a premium," Scott said. "So we see this as a real win for everybody."

The property was assessed at $272,500 this year, but the municipality agreed to sell it for $25,000. Scott said the assessed value includes the building, which the province will have to tear down.

"The building would require hundreds of thousands of dollars of upgrades to continue to be used as a fire hall, or I supposed any other type of facility," Scott said.

"We sold it at what we thought was a fair value of just the land itself."

A spokesperson for the Department of Advanced Education said the project is in the pre-design phase and they could not provide a timeline for completion. 

"We will have more information to share once the design has been finalized and a contractor has been selected," they said in an email.