SUNBURY – Sunbury city council has voted to waive a $250,000 performance bond for the purchaser of the former Northumberland County Prison. Mark Walberg purchased the fire damaged building for $40,000 and wants to get started on restoring the building.
Mayor David Persing explained what the bond was for, “The performance bond that we were looking at putting on there, was pretty much to say that he doesn’t buy this building and just walk away from it and never do anything with it. What we got tonight was a letter from his attorney, himself and his organization saying that is not going to happen.”
After debate on the issue, city council waived the fee. Persing said, “We are going by his past history. He has bought a lot of properties in town. There is no question he is ready to go out right now and get things started as soon as they finalize the sale and that’s in the hands of the lawyers.”
Walberg also agreed that if something happened to him, his estate would be responsible for the building. Persing explained, “God forbid, let’s say he walks out the door tomorrow and passes away. Then the estate would be in charge. Maybe the estate walks away someday down the road. Any building in the city of Sunbury that’s deteriorating, we are not going to let just sit there. You know you are going to go after the estate and after the owner at that time. So, we still have the opportunity. If a piece of that falls down and we go and say this is a health and safety issue and you need to address this. He would still have to address it.”
Walberg has renamed the building Stone Castle. He doesn’t have a plan at this time for the building but wants to start fixing the walls and the roof. (Ali Stevens)
