City buildings nearing end of usefulness

Wayne Moore - Dec 8, 2009 Castanet:
As they currently sit, all facilities housing Kelowna city staff are nearing the end of their usefulness. Infrastructure Planning Director Randy Cleveland says some sites are near capacity while others, such as the RCMP detachment and City Yards, are near the end of their service life. "When each of those buildings reaches capacity, which is generally all in the next five years, and some have already hit that point so we are hanging on by just a thread in some areas which is why it is important to plan now," Cleveland told council Monday. "You will see in the 2010 budget two of the facilities that we are looking at initial in-house planning. Those two are the City Yards and the RCMP. Space needs are considerable and budget options are constrained." In order to plan for the expected needs of the city by 2030, Cleveland says a new City Hall, Parks Yard, City Yard, Landfill, RCMP Detachment and Waste Water Treatment Plant will need to be constructed either through expansion of the current site or in a new location. Cleveland says that would come at a cost of between $82M and $121M using 2008 dollars.

He adds that does not include land, soft development, escalation or temporary lease payments if construction is delayed. "The goal (of the report) was to establish a logical and a systematic planning approach to anticipating increasing future demand, to be able to anticipate the growth in our need for buildings and tie in our level of service expectations." Cleveland included only the facilities inhabited by city staff. Not included were arenas, pools, community centres, stadiums, park facilities and cultural venues as well as the airport which Cleveland says has its own planning tool. "It's not that we can't do these things but we wanted to get a handle first and foremost on our own staff requirements because in the last several years we have been driven by new people coming in the door and not having a place to sit." Cleveland will return to council chambers sometime in 2010 with an updated 10-year capital plan for operational buildings.