The Thunder Bay Yacht Club is returning home.
The club had been evicted along with other tenants of the former CN Station two years ago when a lease between the city and private developers was signed. Around 3,000-square feet in the station were lost and the club had to find somewhere else to go.
“We felt quite displaced because it’s a gathering spot for a majority of our members,” club commodore Todd Siciliano said Thursday morning.
A 20-year lease between the club and the city had eight years left on it when the move was made.
Through negotiations, the club is now allowed to return home to stay for the remainder of that lease, which expires in August of 2020. Siciliano said if an agreement couldn’t have been reached, legal action would have been a good possibility.
“Of course whenever you break a lease a lease is a legal contract so if there was no resolution we probably wouldn’t have had much choice but to resort to a lawsuit but nothing’s gone forward we were able to negotiate with the city,” he said.
“We enjoy boating. We really don’t want to take up time doing other things during the summer than boating,” Siciliano said. “This was an inconvenience and we’re just happy to put it behind us.”
The city didn’t want to comment on the situation as it was a legal matter. Manager Tim Commisso did say he’s pleased to move forward with the 275-member club.
