Engineers are being brought in to determine if the main floor and basement of Sarnia's Judith and Norman Alix Art Gallery and the former CIBC bank can be connected.
Lambton County purchased the 8,180 square foot building, at Front and Lochiel streets, for $1.025 million last November.
General Manager of Facilities John Innes said they're hoping to develop a meeting space to deliver county services and a space to deliver youth programming, such as cooking lessons.
"We are considering building a kitchen in the space," said Innes. "We would build it to commercial grade, which would allow us to not only offer programming to assist people and teach them to do that, but also allow us to hold events that require the serving of food in the space as well."
Innes said they're also considering using the banks old night depository slot for needle disposal, if there is a need.
"Really nothing more than an extension of the yellow plastic containers that you find in most public washrooms these days," he said.
Innes said so far crews have removed internal partitions in the bank and were working to level the floors.
Innes said he expects to present Lambton County Council with finalized development plans for the space at the beginning of summer.
The county was already leasing the second floor of the building for the gallery.
