Feds spending $10.8M on new digs for civil service
The gutting and teardown has begun at a federal building in downtown Windsor, but it’s just the first stage of a $10.8-million renovation to the future home of more than 300 civil servants.
The bulk of the new occupants at 441 University Ave. W., will be about 300 Canada Revenue Agency employees vacating the Paul Martin Building a few blocks away at 185 Ouellette Ave., next spring. Also making the move is a Public Services and Procurement Canada facility manager and four wildlife enforcement employees with Environment and Climate Change Canada.
The office structure being rehabilitated was once home to a Canadian Forces recruitment office, and, until 2014, a Veterans’ Affairs office. Neither department will be among the new tenants.
The new federal investment is great news for Windsor and the downtown, said Mayor Drew Dilkens.
After Ottawa announced several years ago that it was vacating the Paul Martin Building, the City of Windsor began lobbying to make sure the hundreds of federal civil servant positions there wouldn’t be moved out of the city.
“This is extremely positive — one of the priorities we had from the beginning was maintaining that federal footprint in Windsor,” said Dilkens.
According to building permits being issued by the city, the work at 441 University involves a complete gutting of the building’s interior, providing a new facade along the street front and redoing the parking lot in the rear. The building will also get a lot greener, with energyefficient lighting and mechanical units, as well as solar panels to be installed on the roof of the twostorey structure.
A CRA spokesman told the Star all of its employees at the Paul Martin Building will be making the move in 2018.
John Revell, Windsor’s chief building official, said the work being paid for by Ottawa is a windfall for city hall. More senior levels of government don’t need municipal approvals for any work on their own buildings, but the feds usually apply for permits and pay for them “as a courtesy,” said Revell.
For an “extensive” project like the current $10.8-million upgrade, he said that means about $150,000 in building permit fees flowing into municipal coffers. Revell said that’s the annual pay equivalent for 1½ new building inspectors.
A community outcry followed the previous Conservative government’s decision to shut down the VA office on University Avenue in January 2014. The Trudeau Liberals opened a new VA-dedicated office in the Chrysler Tower at 1 Riverside Dr. W., last April, with 15 staff serving nearly 2,700 area military veterans.
With Windsor’s economy booming — unemployment low and housing construction and prices high — Revell’s department has been on a hiring spree the past two years. While additional inspectors have been brought on, he said the biggest issue currently is in the area of mechanical inspections, where there have been delays in getting approvals.