There’s a captivating property on the market in Antigonish these days, and you don’t need to break the law to get inside.

It’s the former Antigonish Correctional Facility, the county jail, which opened in 1948.

Over the years the facility has housed hundreds of accused and convicted, like Johnny Mackenzie, charged with triple murder back in 1989, but found not guilty at trial.

The province decommissioned the facility back in January, leaving the owner, the County of Antigonish, with an empty jail.

“It’s not something we’d like to see sit empty for a number of reasons,” says Glenn Horne, county clerk treasurer. “We thought it prudent to give the community and opportunity to provide some input, so that’s why we released an RFP for the repurposing of the facility.”

It’s not a big place.

The minimum security facility had a 17 bed capacity, and 22 employees.

There’s yard outside, and a few names carved on the stone walls.

Oddly enough, it has served as more than just a jail.

“It was originally maintained by a family that actually lived in the building and ran the jail for a number of years,” explains Horne.

Residents, on the outside, have come up with several uses for the building.

“You could use it for youth programs, which could feed back into the correctional institutions,” says town resident William Gottschall. “You could use it to house some of our social programs that don’t have places to be.”

County Clerk Treasurer, Glenn Horne, admits the natural conclusion for buildings like this is usually demolition, but the county doesn’t want to do that too quickly.

The deadline for proposals is June 5th.

With files from CTV Atlantic’s Dan MacIntosh.