The City of Oshawa will take possession of the Cullen Miniature Village sometime over the next month after a deal to purchase the 120 tiny homes, cars and trains was finalized late last week, said the founder's eldest son.

Plans are to establish a new tourist attraction along Oshawa's waterfront, said Mr. Cullen. The family has given the City permission to use the Cullen name in hopes of carrying on the work Len Cullen began when he launched the popular gardens in Whitby in 1980.

It closed in 2006 and the property was sold to the Town of Whitby.

Sources at City Hall say Oshawa purchased the miniatures for $234,000. The City will work with Owen Hachey, a long-time employee of the former Cullen Gardens, who built the original miniatures, to restore them.

"Oshawa assured me they are going to do a good job of getting it together," Mr. Cullen said, from his Ottawa home. "They have a great horticulturist on staff, and with Owen's help, it's going to be spectacular."

Cindy Symons-Milroy, Oshawa's director of economic development services, said a location for the village hasn't been identified. City council will be asked this September to hire a consultant to help complete a business plan looking at potential sites, an operational model and other features that could help compliment such an attraction.

Having the Cullen name is definitely a good start, she said.

"It's great to associate a name that is so well recognized not only in Durham Region but really across the province," Ms. Symons-Milroy added.

When Cullen Gardens closed in early 2006, plans were already underway to relocate the miniature village to another site near Brooklin, where Mr. Cullen had purchased property for a new tourist attraction he called Coronation Station.

But the founder was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and died that August. Mr. Cullen said his father's final wishes were that the Coronation property be sold and that the miniature village be sold as a collection, not auctioned off in pieces.

It took a full six months before the family felt comfortable enough to approach buyers.

"First of all we had the grieving of losing our father. That was huge. And we had already lost Cullen Gardens that year so we had that grieving," said Mr. Cullen. "We knew we didn't have the energy all of us five kids to run something of that magnitude because we're all involved in busy careers ourselves."

Oshawa seemed a good fit because many of the miniatures are of buildings within the City and Durham Region, he said.