East Gwillimbury completes construction of $18.5M operations centre

Facility will be home to more than 120 full-time and seasonal staff

Yorkregion.com
June 18, 2021
Simon Martin

The construction of a new $18.5-million operations centre in East Gwillimbury is complete. The new centre, located at 19850 Woodbine Ave., is a 57,000-square-foot facility that will support town infrastructure and services, including roads, fleet, water and wastewater, parks, facilities and emergency services training and emergency operations.

The facility will be home to more than 120 full-time and seasonal staff throughout the year with capacity for future growth.

Staff will begin to move into the new facility in phases to ensure all COVID-19 health and safety measures are followed.

“We are extremely proud of this new facility, which includes innovative environmental features as well as our first-ever greenhouse and tree farm. We are excited to invite our residents to tour the facility just as soon as it is safe to do so,” says Mayor Virginia Hackson. “This new operations centre is something our town has needed for some time, and we are very proud that it has been built with no cost to our residents, maintaining council’s commitment to our fiscal responsibility. Our next step will be to explore options for the site of the current Works Yard, and we will be engaging our community in this process.”

The new building and 20-acre site has various efficiency and environmental features incorporated throughout, including collaborative meeting areas, administrative and service bays, a new emergency operations centre, a state-of-the-art training space, a driver training area, a 15,000-square-foot sand and salt dome, electronic vehicle charging stations, bicycle and carpool parking, white roof technology, a 1,400-square-foot greenhouse, and a tree farm. A full list of features both inside and outside of the facility is available at www.eastgwillimbury.ca/opscentre.

Construction of the facility began in the summer of 2019, and was completed by Percon Construction Incorporated. The project was funded entirely through development charges. It was completed under the council approved budget and within the revised schedule due to COVID-19. To facilitate this project, Woodbine Avenue was widened in front of the facility in partnership with York Region.

The town plans to host an official opening and invite the public to see the new facility when provincial safety restrictions allow larger gatherings.