Councillors and agents will commence a competitive leasing process for the Southern Regional Livestock Exchange (SRLX) in 2020.
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A recommendation for the SRLX's future operational model was discussed at Wednesday night's council meeting.
This was following the completion of a service delivery review, which commenced in September 2017.
The recommendation was that in the first quarter of 2020 council advertise for expressions of interest to lease the SRLX, with a preference for a long-term capital lease.
Councillors voted unanimously to support this path.
The SRLX is managed and operates under business principles and is not a separate entity from council.
Stakeholders who use the facility such as producers, agents and buyers generate a commercial return from its use, and it is managed on the basis that a financial return is also generated to ratepayers.
There have been several years during the past decade where council has foregone this return due to lower than expected throughput at the facility.
The return is typically set as part of the annual budget, with any additional surplus being restricted to the SRLX operations reserve.
There is a program of works council is committed to under the funding deed, and about 20 per cent of the funding is to upgrade the saleyards.
Mayor and SRLX chairman Duncan Gair said council would lease the SRLX out and had 12 months to work with the agents.
"We have three very experienced agents who will help council with the improvements," Cr Gair said.
"My chairmanship will be coming to an end very soon... the involvement in seeing where its come from 14 years ago to where it is now and with this $5 million that's going to be spent... it'll make it an Australia-wide facility.
"It's going to be very interesting to who runs those saleyards and council absolves itself from that responsibility. We are not selling, we are leasing and that is iron-clad."
