The property which encompasses the 65+ year old racetrack, Western Speedway, was listed for sale on Tuesday.
Located at 2207 Millstream Road, the racetrack is part of an 80.97 acre property that is designated as a ‘Business or Light Industrial Centre’ in the Langford Official Community Plan.
It was listed for sale by a local commercial real estate company, and is part of the estate of Vera Willie who died in 2017.
No asking price has been specified, but the listing states that 42.8 acres are appropriate for commercial use while 3.34 acres are being proposed for residential use.
The current zoning for the property includes commercial recreation, one and two family residential, and rural residential.
It is being sold through a competitive bidding process through which interested buyers must submit their bids in triplicate to the agency by June 18th 2020.
Besides a racetrack, the Western Speedway site encompasses a go-kart track, batting cages, mini golf, and an RV Park.
In a phone call with Victoria Buzz, Langford mayor Stew Young expressed his desire in keeping the speedway intact if possible.
“We’d like to keep the speedway, that’s the preference for council. It’s a family place to go to for over 60 years years and it gets big crowds,” says Young.
While council cannot get involved in the sale of the property, Young hopes that whoever buys it will respect the wishes of council and community members who want to keep the racetrack as is.
“Whoever owns the property if they so choose to take out the speedway they can probably do that but then if they did that then they’re not really working well with the city and residents. Residents will be upset, and that’s who approves the rezoning at public meetings.”
“All I can hope for is that the racing community will still have a speedway there at the end of the process.”
