East Gwillimbury moving ahead with $16.7M operations centre
Work will star this year
Yorkregion.com
June 5, 2019
Simon Martin
East Gwillimbury is getting a new big ticket item. How big? $16.7 million dollar big. The town awarded the tender for its new Municipal Operations Centre to Percon Construction for $16,729,00.
Work on the building at 19850 Woodbine Avenue will commence this year with completion expected late in 2020.
Currently, the town are supported by retrofit space next to the East Gwillimbury Sports Complex on a 4-acre site which according to town staff does not meet standards necessary to provide service levels to the growing municipality.
In recent years, Chief Administrative Officer Tom Webster said there has been operational issues at the site including frozen plumbing lines.
The new municipal operations centre project will support critical town infrastructure and core services including roads, fleet, water and wastewater, parks, facilities and fire training and development and emergency operations.
The new facility will support more than 120 full-time and seasonal staff throughout the year with some capacity for growth.
Mayor Virginia Hackson said she is very happy with how the project has moved so far and thinks it will bring benefits to the town in the future. She pointed to things like the greenhouse that will allow the town to provide more flowers and fauna across the community. “It is the softer side of who we are,” she said.
“It has been a long time coming,” Ward 3 Councillor Cathy Morton said. “I look forward to seeing 2020 and the end result.”
In 2014, council approved the purchase of a 20 acre site on Woodbine Avenue at a cost of $110,000 per acre for the development of a new municipal operations centre. The strategic land acquisition was purchased below market value.
This future employment corridor today has a serviceable land value at approximately $400,000 per acre. The land value appreciation has been around $6,000,000.
In addition, shifting operations to 19850 Woodbine Avenue will position the town to re-purpose the 4 acres behind the Sports Complex for parks and facility expansion without the requirement to purchase additional land.
The town is planning on funding the project entirely through development charges. In a presentation to council, town staff presented what they called a conservative funding model that would see money allocated to the project through the emergency services development charge, roads development charge, water development charge, outdoor recreation development charge and the community capital contribution. Under the scenario the town would need to take a loan out from a bank that could add approximately $1.8 million to the cost in interest. The town also could borrow from itself which would reduce the interest cost of the project. Hackson said because the town is in such good financial shape and has no debt there is a variety of options available to them for funding the project.
“This is incredibly important not only for the seven people making the decision, it is also important for our residents to understand the process,” Hackson said. “This is a very different community that we live in that has money in the bank for an operation centre and for a health and active living plaza.”
Hackson went on to say the town has the money because they have waited until they had the money to do it.
While council approved the tender, they will have staff report back to gain further clarity for different options available for funding the project.
“This is the kind of project that will go largely unnoticed by the masses. Executed improperly everyone is going to know about it,” Ward 3 Coun. Scott Crone said.
