It’s unclear how much a fire at the Wee Links pro shop will set back renovations to the golf course. The site was turned over to the city and has been closed since 2013, but a blaze broke out in the building Wednesday night. Firefighters were able to contain the damage to the inside of the structure, but Muskoseepi Park Customer Service Manager Chad Cronk says they don’t yet know what started the flames.
“The fire department is out investigating to see what it looks like. It’s really hard to tell at this point, but it does look like it may have been caused by somebody in the building; whether they broke in or whether it was vandalism or somebody trying to live in the building we’re not quite sure yet.”
Cronk says the city wasn’t planning on doing any work on the pro shop building until next spring, and a decision still hasn’t been made on whether to renovate it or to use a different structure. Regardless, he calls it frustrating.
“Just because we’ve been putting so much work; the City and the team down there has done such a fantastic job in terms of revamping the whole area. There was work that needed to be done on the building anyways; it’s hard to say whether or not any of those costs are going to go up.”
Cronk says they’ll be waiting to hear from the fire department on whether or not there was major structural damage to the building before moving forward. The City recently committed to spending $410,000 to purchase an artificial turf in the hopes of re-opening next summer.