Upgrade of city buildings nears final stretch
Modernization, need for space behind renovations
Scaffolding outside Niagara Falls city hall and the city-owned former Morrison Street police station isn’t coming down just yet.
But both projects are on their way to giving the two municipal buildings a new look and a clean bill of health for possibly the next half-century.
Combined, the work will cost about $8.5 million when complete, but in both cases the need for it was unavoidable, said Niagara Falls chief administrative officer Ken Todd.
Both buildings — a couple of hundred feet apart, separated by a parking lot — were built about 50 years ago and were due for upgrades.
“We had a decision we had to make, probably five or six years ago” on city hall, Todd said.
“We had had an energy audit done, a condition assessment, and it was either build a brand new city hall or start to renovate what we’ve got.”
This is the first major upgrade for city hall on Queen Street since it opened. First up was to replace the heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems.
“Then we had to get new windows put in, they were singlepane non-efficient windows. The third phase is to get the cladding done (on the exterior). There was no exterior insulation in this building.”
That work should make the building a little less costly to maintain.
“Energy costs, we like to look at it as minimizing the increase,” Todd said.
“Because energy costs are going to continue to go up. It’s getting a hold on managing those increases.”
Work is also underway to improve its accessibility for people with disabilities, mandated under provincial law.
The city hall work was expected to be done by the end of July, but now looks like it should be wrapped up before the end of August, Todd said.
At some point, the new city council will look at replacing the municipal works yard on Stanley Avenue. It’s cramped and outdated, Todd said, and a new yard would likely house some city staff, which would free up office space at city hall.
“All our other facilities, whether it’s our transit facility, the MacBain Centre, our arenas, our seniors centre, our museum, they’re all in pretty good shape,” he said.
Both city hall and the former police station will have similar exteriors now, adding a “campuslike feel to the downtown,” Todd said.
The city bought the old Niagara Regional Police offices in late 2016 to house its technical workers, the Small Business Enterprise Centre, engineering staff and Niagara Region Broadband Network, a fibre optics provider jointly owned by Niagara Falls and the town of Niagara-on-theLake.
When it opens in the fall, it’ll save the city on rent it currently pays to house staff elsewhere and also bring in revenue through rent the broadband office will pay.
“Ideally we’d like to get (the city engineering staff out of the city hall basement) and into space that’s a little bit more environmentally friendly, if you will,” Todd said with a laugh.
“Also they’ll be working in closer conjunction with our IT staff there.”