The St. Albert RCMP detachment will be getting a second location for both policing and civilian staff, but they won’t be moving into the Hemingway Centre, the force’s former home.
After months of trying to find either a location to lease or a way to renovate the Hemingway Centre to accommodate the RCMP, council instead voted to pursue purchasing a building within St. Albert to address the detachment’s space needs, effectively removing the Hemingway Centre as an option.
Administration conducted a third study of what it would take to renovate the building to a standard suitable for the RCMP, which would involve removing asbestos and lead paint. For the third time, the estimate came in at nearly $2 million.
“We’re better off just to tear the whole thing down,” Coun. Roger Lemieux said.
Instead the city engaged a local realtor to search out local buildings with square footages in excess of 10,000 sq. ft or shovel-ready land of 1.25 acres. What it found was a series of buildings the city could purchase locally with available square footage close to the 10,000 requirement. While this number is in excess of the 6,500 sq. ft. the RCMP needs now to manage its personnel needs, acting city manager Chris Jardine said that was the point.
“We might need to expand but we are talking the 20-year horizon. As part of our review into this, we thought what do we want to do for the next 10 years. That started us thinking of expanding that horizon and getting more life out of the police detachment.”
In the interim, administration proposed discussion of the Hemingway Centre renovations be postponed until a decision has been made on its future use. All motions passed unanimously.
The current RCMP detachment on Bellerose Drive measures 19,000 sq. ft. and has exceeded its capacity. The approximately 85 RCMP, municipal enforcement officers and civilian staff are working in tight quarters, with some individuals working out of storage rooms. Jardine said the building’s design only contemplated 10 years of usefulness before more space or a larger detachment would be needed because that was the way planners thought at the time.
While the buildings the city is contemplating purchasing are confidential due to possible negotiations, one has 9,000 sq. ft. of space with the owner ready to sell this coming summer. A second is located close to some city-owned land that would be suitable for parking.
Detachment commander Insp. Warren Dosko, who watched the debate from the gallery, was pleased with the outcome.
“I think there’s a clear recognition the space we have today is too small and that there’s a positive direction to move forward and acquire some space to expand,” Dosko said.
Simply renovating the Hemingway Centre and moving back in would have been little more than a Band-Aid solution that would cause more problems in the future, Dosko acknowledged.
“We’d just be looking at a move three to five years down the road,” he said. “Then we move out and find another space. Then it’s not suitable for the next tenant and then they renovate it again.”
