‘Urgent’ reno to make Queen’s Park greener

The Ontario government will spend hundreds of millions of dollars to renovate its massive office complex at Queen’s Park in order to reduce its carbon footprint and potentially save $1 billion over the next 50 years.

Infrastructure Minister Bob Chiarelli announced Tuesday the province will retrofit the four-tower Macdonald Block.

The block dates back to the late 1960s and stands at the southwest corner of Bay and Wellesley Sts.

Chiarelli said the historic Whitney Block, a 1930s Art Deco building on Queen’s Park Cr., would also be updated with new windows, heating systems and a repaired facade.

A final tally of all the repairs will not be known until the project has been tendered by Infrastructure Ontario, but officials say the price tag will likely be in the “hundreds of millions of dollars.”

Michael Nobrega, the retired president and CEO of OMERS (Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System) who chaired an expert panel on the reconstruction project, said the renovations are “an urgent necessity.”

“The evidence is compelling that the complex’s core systems have deteriorated to the extent that they represent real risks of future disruptive failures that will negatively impact government operations at the complex and at adjacent government buildings,” he warned.

“It is the expert panel’s view that reconstruction is a time-sensitive priority and an appropriate investment in the maintenance and enhancement of the provincial government’s operational capability.”

Nobrega’s panel concluded the annual operating and capital expenses for the buildings, which house 3,600 employees, would be reduced from an average of $144 million to $121 million over the next 50 years.

That means yearly savings of at least $20 million, which could total $1 billion in a half-century.

Those would come from lower energy bills, reduced operating costs, and consolidating government workers to cut 380,000 square feet of leased office space in other parts of downtown Toronto.

Environment Minister Glen Murray said modernizing the vast complex’s cooling, heating, water, and electrical systems would also complement the government’s $8.3-billion plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

“Ontarians and the government are doing their part in the global effort to fight climate change,” Murray said in a statement that noted the province is committed to make “provincial government operations carbon neutral by 2018.”

“Through this project, our government is demonstrating leading practices in green infrastructure, low carbon building retrofits, design, construction and technologies to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”