Sign up for the battlefordsNOW newsletter

Upgrades coming to town hall

Mar 9, 2018 | 11:00 AM

The Town of Battleford will invest up to $20,000 to make exterior upgrades to the historic town hall building after ear-marking funds for the project in this year’s budget.

The issue came up at council’s recent meeting.

“It’s been identified as we’re going forward here that some immediate small maintenance needs to be done to the town hall with the bricks,” Mayor Ames Leslie said.

He said the town was able to find some savings to get the job done.

“Initially we were told we would need to spend about $600,000 to salvage the bricks immediately,” he said. 

Leslie said the town since determined that it could get the work done for a “fraction of that cost” – at a total of about $20,000 this year.

“It’s good to see a lot of this stuff brings savings to the taxpayers,” he said.

The project is expected to start this spring.

Chief Administrative Officer John Enns-Wind said in his report the town needs to complete work to maintain the structure and meet the loading requirements for the 2015 National Building Code.

Enns-Wind added the building structure is actually in better shape than anticipated but the work needs to get done to preserve the site for another 50 years.

Council approved the town to cover up to $20,000 for immediate repairs of the town hall building including cornice work and brick repointing. The 2018 cost is expected to be $8,000 for brickwork with an extra $10,000 more for completing cornice work which is covered under warranty. 

The work will get started sometime this spring.

 

angela.brown@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @battlefordsnow