Ice District building ready to receive 2,000 city workers
About 2,000 city workers expected to move from nine other buildings by June
Acrobats and jugglers performed Wednesday in the lobby of the Edmonton Tower for the official opening of the first major office building completed in the downtown Ice District.
The 27-storey structure at 101 Street and 104 Avenue will house about 2,000 city employees, including 100 who starting Monday will run a new second-floor customer service centre where people can buy licences and permits, pay taxes and pick up transit tickets.
Seven downtown counters that now provide these services will close Friday, including ones in City Hall and Chancery Hall.
“This tower’s significance for the City of Edmonton as a municipal corporation is that it is already changing the way we work as an organization, and very soon it will change the way that Edmontonians access services,” Mayor Don Iveson said.
About 750 staff from the sustainable development department are already based in the tower, and everyone else will be shifted from the nine other buildings by the end of June.
Most workspaces are not assigned. Instead, employees will be encouraged to use the site that best suits the job they are doing.
They’ll have such facilities as an on-site daycare and a “multi-faith room” for prayer and aboriginal smudging ceremonies, Iveson said.
“Two-thirds of the city’s downtown staff will now be located in a single space,” he said.
“This move is expected to save us millions of dollars in lease costs and allow us to reduce our overall space needs, through some efficiencies, of up to 25 per cent.”
That change will also improve communications by bringing people together from different departments, Iveson said.
“I’ve heard stories of planners bumping into engineers who wouldn’t have bumped into each other before, and were able to solve problems literally over the kitchen counter.”
Glen Scott, senior vice-president of real estate for the Katz Group, said the structure cost more than $300 million and will house about 3,000 people.
About 80 per cent of the retail space is already leased and the rest should be taken in 90 days, while there are still three or four floors vacant in the office tower, he said.
“We’re building a total of 1.3 million square feet of office (in the Ice District) and we’re collectively over 90 per cent leased, which anybody in North America will tell you is a home run.”
The 67-storey Stantec Tower is set for occupancy in October 2018, while the JW Marriott Tower and Legends Private Residences should be ready in spring 2019.
Scott wouldn’t discuss the future of the closed Baccarat Casino across the street, which in the past the company indicated would be replaced by 2019 with a “trophy” tower that could include residential space.
“I think you’ll see as we work through our plans we have a major public consultation process we’re going to be kick-starting for lands on the north side of the arena, and I think you’ll be quite excited about some of the plans we have for there.”
This move is expected to save us millions of dollars in lease costs and allow us to reduce our overall space needs