RCMP’s new digs nearly done
The Okanagan Saturday
Kelowna RCMP members will be moving into their new building later this spring, as the facility nears completion.
“The building that we’re currently in was built in 1962,” said Kerry Solinski, with the RCMP.
“It is extremely small and a lot of our people are working out of closets.”
The current police building on Doyle Avenue is 49,000 square feet, while the new $48-million building on Clement Avenue is about 107,000 square feet.
“We couldn’t expand downtown anymore, because that building is so old it just wasn’t feasible,” said Solinski.
RCMP officers currently work out of three facilities across Kelowna; with the new building, they will all be together.
“Bringing everybody into one area is going to make a huge difference on the functionality of police work and being able to work side by side again without being spread all over the place,” said Solinski.
There will be 190 police officers and about 90 support staff working out of the new space.
Ground was broken on the new site on Sept. 9, 2015, and construction is expected to be completed on March 24. Tickets at the Select Your Tickets office at Prospera Place. Call or visit
RCMP officers and support staff will move into the new building in phases, starting at the end of May.
“We should be operational by about June 15,” said Anita Rideout, client services supervisor with the City of Kelowna.
“We want to have it all operational before the July long weekend, because that’s when the city gets very busy.”
Rideout led members of the media on a tour of the new building Friday morning, showing off the numerous meeting rooms, interview rooms and the cellblock area, where prisoners will be held.
No photos were allowed in the majority of the building due to security reasons.
“We have features in here that we should have been using in the past that we’re able to use now,” said Solinski.
“With the advent of the new building, it allows us to keep up with all the new technologies and also the new ways of investigation.”
The main entrance of the building leads into a large foyer and the area of the facility accessible to the public.
One of the notable differences between the old police building and the new one is the separation of interview rooms for the public and for the prisoners.
“Right now, we don’t have interview rooms in our cellblock; we have them outside that area, so RCMP members have to escort the prisoners under tight security into the operational zone,” said Rideout.
“Now, RCMP members will be able to interview the prisoners in the detention zone, which maintains security for the building.”
Public interview rooms are located near the main entrance.
The new building will also have two fingerprinting areas, one for prisoners and one for the public.
“Currently, members of the public have to go into the cellblock area (for fingerprinting), which can be uncomfortable for people,” said Rideout.
“Now, we have non-criminal fingerprinting in one of the rooms by the lobby.”
The new building has 29 cells, compared to 22 in the old building.
However, there is room for expansion, for both the cellblock and the administrative areas.
“When it comes time that we fill up the new building in approximately 20 years time or so, we can actually build out over the cellblock area for more administrative offices and work spaces,” said Rideout.
“Being a new building, we want to ensure that we can still have all the departments working in the same area for future use.”
The police building on Doyle Avenue will be torn down, but there is currently no timeline for the demolition, said Andrew Gibbs, senior project manager with the City of Kelowna.
“There’s some hazmat assessment work that has to be done,” he said, adding the city still does not know what it will do with the former RCMP site.
“That’s still up in the air.”