Skip to content

Updated: Deal for Midway Mill closes

The deal for the Midway Mill has gone through.

Midway Mayor Randy Kappes confirmed that the deal was struck just before 5 p.m. last Friday (Feb. 4).

“Boundary Sawmills has purchased the mill, the asset purchase has gone through and the lease with Vaagen is signed,” Kappes told the Grand Forks Gazette. “It took us a little bit longer than we hoped, to get it done – about a week past the date it was supposed to be.”

Kappes said this was due to the complication of the transaction, since everything had to be finalized at the same time.

He said that because of this, they had the lease done at the same time as well.

Kappes said that the next step is for Vaagen Bros Lumber to take a closer look at what they will need to do to the mill to get it running.

“They were saying for a while now that they were hoping to have things going by September, but it’s obviously going to take some time to get the equipment in,” Kappes said.

Kappes says the next step for Boundary Sawmills will be to go back to the public and “present them with the actual purchase of the assets and with the lease and convince them to come and take part.”

He says that they still will need to raise more funds.

“It should become a whole lot easier to get people excited about it now that we have something to show them,” he said.

Earlier on Friday, there was an extension put in place that would have seen the deadline for a deal extended to Feb. 11.

Fox Lumber, former owners of the mill, also said that it was a complicated deal, leading to a slower pace in negotiations.

“It seems like co-ordinating everything between all the different groups seems to make things take a little bit longer,” Fox Lumber Director of Operations Quintin Apedaile explained to the Gazette at the time.

“I know that even though we were only dealing with Boundary Sawmills, I know on other fronts they’re dealing with other parties to make the big picture come together,” he said, adding that was what created the longer turnaround time.

Kappes said that they will release more information this week and will also have a press conference.