Corp Comm Connects
 
Toronto and Region Conservation Authority planning new headquarters

By Sue-Ann Levy
May 11, 2014
TorontoSun.com

The Toronto and Region Conservation Authority has decided to move on up - to the city above Toronto - while they build themselves a spanking new “flagship” headquarters, the Toronto Sun has learned.

And it looks like it’s full steam ahead for the new head office with no funding plan in place to pay for it or an agreement from the City of Toronto, the TRCA’s largest municipal funder, to subsidize the build.

According to a May 7 e-mail to staff from CEO Brian Denney, obtained by the Sun, the move to the 61,189-square-foot Priszm building at the intersection of Hwys. 407 and 400 in Vaughan will occur, hopefully, by year’s end and will only be a temporary one for the “next six years” until they can build a new office in or around their current location.

“We have initiated an exciting long-term plan to build a new office on Shoreham Drive,” Denney writes to staff, noting they’ve been working on that effort since 2008. “Several years of planning and design lay ahead of us before we are able to finance and construct this flagship project, which will demonstrate the values of TRCA, our commitment to staff and The Living City vision.”

According to a rental prospectus, the Bentall Kennedy building in Vaughan offers an outdoor seating area, 302 parking spots in addition to being on the new subway line, plus hotels, AMC theatres, IKEA, restaurants and fitness facilities within walking distance.

The office move item was approved in-camera at the Authority’s March 28 meeting - apparently because it involved ongoing property negotiations.

TRCA chairman Gerri Lynn O’Connor, also mayor of the Township of Uxbridge, refused to comment on the board vote, the move or the plan to build a new office when contacted by the Sun, referring all enquiries to the TRCA’s senior manager of communications Rick Sikorski.

Attempts to reach Toronto board members and councillors Gloria Lindsay Luby, Anthony Perruzza, John Parker and Vince Crisanti were also unsuccessful.

Denney first came under fire in a series of Sun articles in April when it was revealed that the TRCA owned 118 homes on huge swaths of forested land valued at $35 million and leasing them at an average going rate of $1,212 per month - and that Denney has lived in one of those homes since 1976.

The Sun also revealed that Denney has been receiving both his OMERS pension - equivalent to about $140,000 a year plus his contract fee - after the TRCA board voted at an in-camera meeting to allow him to retire, then promptly hired him back on a three-year contract with no competition.

Kevin Gaudet, who is running for the Ontario PCs in the riding of Pickering-Scarborough East, said the TRCA is running amok with taxpayer dollars.

“King Denney and his court are moving themselves into a new castle,” Gaudet said, adding that the minister needed to step in because the TRCA is going crazy. “He really does run this whole thing like his own kingdom.”

Denney said the leasing cost and costs of the move are still being worked out and the number of staff who will be housed there is also a “moving target.” But there could be up to 325 when they consolidate staff now located at Shoreham Dr., as well as those at Canuck Dr. in Downsview Park, he said. The lease on the latter location expires at the end of July.

Denney’s e-mail to staff indicates this interim office location will require “some interior modifications and refurbishment” but promises that a Project Team has already been established to create a “very creative, modern and productive work environment.”

This is the second go-round for the TRCA board and Denney, who were turned down in their efforts to purchase a 177,935-square-foot office building near Weston Rd. and Steeles Ave. W. for $14 million in March of 2011. Had the purchase gone forward, the City of Toronto would have been on the hook for $9.2 million of the purchase price, to be paid over 10 years, according to a briefing note prepared by city staff at the time.

The purchase of the building on Ormont Dr. was seen as an “interim solution” to put all head office staff under one roof until the lands at Shoreham Dr. and the parking lot at Black Creek Pioneer Village could be revitalized to include “LEED platinum” office space for TRCA. LEED platinum is considered the pinnacle of green building construction, the 2011 note said.

The Shoreham Dr. building, constructed in 1970 on lands owned by TRCA, was described as “sub-standard” in that same briefing note, although no further explanation was given.

“We did have an option to buy another existing office building in Toronto (but) the City (of Toronto) turned us down,” Denney said last week. “We had support from Peel and York (but) Toronto decided not to pursue that.”

Denney said they haven’t determined where exactly they’ll build the new office - either on the old Shoreham site or in the parking lot of Black Creek Pioneer Village.

As for the cost of the new build, he said that “still has to be worked out as well.”

Whether Toronto will contribute to the cost of constructing a new office is “another discussion at another time,” he added.

Asked what will happen to their office at Shoreham Dr., he said they could look for a tenant. But the 2011 briefing note says demand for the property on a leased basis is “low” and that it could take 12-18 months to find a tenant. The annual net income that could be generated from a lease was calculated at $200,000.

Results of March 28 in-camera vote to lease new office space:

YES

NO