Starland County is ready to show its new offices at its grand opening.
The County has completed a major renovation of the facility and has slated its grand opening for Thursday, August 2. This is not the only event they are celebrating. The celebration marks the 40th anniversary of the Big County Gas Co-op, which shares the facility; this coincides with the Year of the Cooperative. They are also marking 10 years of Starland operating an ATB agency.
The renovations began early in 2011 to the administration office, which was of 1970’s vintage. The goal was to expand its space, increase its efficiency and to make the building more accessible.
It has achieved its goals on all fronts. The building’s entrance is now at ground level, the council chamber is expanded and also set up as a hub in case of a disaster, with banks of data and telephone ports. The building easily houses many of its services including FCSS, agriculture services and bylaw enforcement. The construction also planned for long-term growth.
“The space was designed so that in the longer term some of these spaces could be converted to additional office space,” said Starland CAO Ross Rawlusyk. “When we were planning the building we worked with the staff to identify what the future staffing requirements might be 20 years down the road and that is what we designed the space for.”
And while they have almost doubled its size, it has become more efficient.
“One of our goals going in was that at the end of the day the expanded building would use less energy than the building did before,” said Rawlusyk. “We do know we have done that. We are a couple hundred dollars a month under what we were before.”
“We definitely met our objective of not having a bigger footprint at the end of the day.”
Part of achieving this efficiency is not only from upgrading insulation and fixtures, but also from the second largest building mount solar project in the province. The new office has highly efficient solar array that provide upwards of 15 kilowatts.
The project was funding through the province’s Municipal Sustainability Initiative (MSI) and the federal Gas Tax Program. Rawlusyk said the County had very fortunate timing for the project, which helped the bottom line. The initial budget was for roughly $1.9 million, Reed Atwood Builders of Calgary came in with a bid of about $1.3 million.
“We were able to keep the old part of the building too, so we were able to maximize what we had and add to it…and make it all new,” said Rawlusyk. “We tendered this right at low point of the economy, so the prices came in a lot lower than the architect estimated.”
He said because of this the county was able to reallocate some of its MSI funding to other needs.
The grand opening is on Thursday, August 2 with lunch served at the Morrin Community Hall and a short program at 2 p.m. Plaques will be unveiled to acknowledge the funding assistance provided by both levels of government. Guided tours of the facility will also be offered.
