Move in the works for County of Kings
Council authorizes municipal complex sale
The County of Kings could soon be looking for a new home.
The Province of Nova Scotia could soon buy the municipal complex in Kentville for use by the Department of Justice. This means the municipality will have to look for new headquarters.
County council met behind closed doors on March 25 to discuss a sale of land negotiation. Council emerged about an hour and a half later and passed a motion to authorize the sale of the municipal complex and land at 87 Cornwallis Street to the province. The deal would be “in accordance with the direction given to the CAO (chief administrative officer) in-camera.”
Coun. Pauline Raven said that “right from the start, we have to keep ourselves on track” with the project and purpose. She moved for council to manage the relocation project in a way that future costs to taxpayers will be reduced from those the county currently has at 87 Cornwallis Street.
“Council has authorized the sale of the building, now we have to negotiate those terms,” chief administrative officer Tom MacEwan said following the meeting.
He said the municipality would be putting together a plan for the relocation process but no decisions have been made. The public will be engaged in decisionmaking.
MacEwan said the operational costs of the current municipal complex are in the range of $500,000 a year. He said the county would be looking for an efficient, modern building.
MacEwan said any new building would be designed to provide efficient and effective service to residents, which the municipality can’t do in the current municipal complex because staff is spread so widely apart. The move is toward “one-stop shopping” and “that can be accomplished in a new building.”
“Our minds are open in terms of exploring all options,” Warden Diana Brothers said. “It’s (the municipal complex) always been seen as the justice centre. When you talk to people in the community in terms of the municipal office, they think of the courtrooms and the justice part of it before they think about the municipal part of it.”
Brothers said the Department of Justice needs more space, so she sees the sale of the buildings and land to the province as a “win-win situation.” The municipality currently leases space in the complex to the justice department.
“I see the province as having an opportunity to have their justice centre here with all the professionals and all the resources that they need and we have an opportunity to have a more efficient building for our constituents,” Brothers said.
Department of Justice media relations advisor Andrew Preeper said the municipality recently asked the province about the possibility of buying the municipal building. The Department of Justice and courts currently take up a good portion of the space in the municipal complex and courts in the area are in different locations. For example, the family court is located on Exhibition Street.
“We are considering this opportunity, as efficiencies could be realized by bringing all justice stakeholders together under one roof,” Preeper said in a March 27 email. “That said, benefits have to be weighed against potential costs.”
Preeper said that work is currently underway and no decisions have been made.
There have been ongoing discussions surrounding the sale of the municipal complex and the relocation of the County of Kings headquarters for several years. There were once preliminary plans to sell the municipal headquarters in Kentville and build a new, energy efficient complex on a green field near the Exit 12 Highway 101 interchange in New Minas.
However, the subject land was purchased by Irving and, with a recently approved development agreement, Kent Building Supplies will be building a big box store there. There could be other business and residential development on the New Minas site in the future.