Whitehorse cuts ribbon on $56M operations building

When Whitehorse Mayor Dan Curtis cut the ribbon on Sept 25, he called it the best day of his career.

"It's absolutely amazing. It's something I know a lot of people in the City of Whitehorse could never believe actually happened," he said.

After a few delays and revisions, and a decade of planning, the city's new operations building is mostly complete, as only work on paving, a fuel station and a vehiclewashing bay remains.

It's already the fourth-biggest building in Yukon behind the Canada Games Centre, the Whitehorse Airport and the Yukon University campus.

And while the final cost is expected to be $56million, advocates in government like Curtissay it's a good investment, which will reduce spending in the long term and set up the City of Whitehorse to handle future growth.

Thebuilding is funded by different levels of governmentwith federal funding expected to come in at $24 million.

The city's contribution of$32 million is a combination of funding from reserves and borrowing, according to the City of Whitehorse.

About 200 people will work in new building

Curtis called the new building "a sign of respect"for city staff who have worked incramped conditions for decades.

About 200 people will be working in the new building, which will have some activity 24-hours a day.

The design combines office space witha maintenance hub and storage space for city buses, loaders, graders, dump trucks, sanders, excavators, packers, line painting equipment and other vehicles.

"It means we finally have enough room,"Curtis said.

"It means our staff won't be working in cramped conditions. We had ... staff working for an hour in the morning backing everything out, just to get the equipment you need," he said.

That daily bottleneck was likened to"a game of Tetris" by Yukon Community Services Minister John Streicker, who said he wasn't the only elected official with concerns about safety in the former building.

Old building called 'asbestos rat trap' and worse

The new building will replace the old municipal services building in Whitehorse, which the city plans to demolish. Those plans are scheduled to bepresented in the capital budget going to council later this year.

From the sounds of it, the mayor would love to press the demolition button.

Curtis called the building"rickety" and "the biggest pig in Yukon" when it comes to energy use.

"We have so many people who have worked in those conditionsand it's hard to understand how we could have allowed it to happen for so long," Curtis said.

Yukon MP Larry Bagnell called the old buildingan "asbestos rat trap" and a "terrible place to work in."

No more idling of city buses all night

The new building's large bays will allow the city'stransit buses to be stored indoors during winter.

On cold nights, thecity used to keep their diesel engines running all night.

"That was absurd," Bagnell said."Keeping our buses running all night long so they would start in the morning, just sitting outside putting particulates into our lungs and greenhouse gases."

The new building is built above Canada's building codes regarding energy efficiency.

It also has 1,050 solar panels on the roof,which are currently producing power. The rooftop will hold the spot asYukon's biggest solar farmuntil a project about 2.5 times the size starts producing power in Old Crow next year, to be followed by aneven larger solar farmbeing planned outside Whitehorse.