There’s plenty of interest in the historical Finnish Labour Temple.
The Finlandia Cooperative feels they have a good shot at purchasing the building back according to spokesperson Paula Haapinen.
“I think we are in a good place and we’ve been preparing all along and now we have an end date. I’m cautiously optimistic that whatever we have to propose will be competitive,” Haapinen says.
The Finlandia Association was forced to give up running the building after it couldn’t pay its bill which totalled up to more than a million dollars.
The sale price for the Bay Street building is now set at just over half a million.
Haapinen is a former member of the Finlandia Association and says they’ve spent their time completing paperwork, getting volunteers and just getting their coop in order so they can bid on getting the building back.
“We want to purchase the building so we can maintain it and provide a number of programming and activities out of it,” Haapinen says.