Now that the Town of Drumheller has largely recovered from the recent flooding crisis, Town staff are busy making the final preparations to move later this summer.
The Drumheller Mail was treated to an inside look of the new Town Hall. All that is left to do are a few finishing touches and to move everything from the current Town Hall to the new one, located in the Drumheller Civic Centre.
“It could be later this month, but we’re hoping for sooner than that,” said Mayor Terry Yemen. “They’ve done the testing on the alarms, so we have a permit to occupy the building. There’s just some finishing up with the contractor to do and building some furniture. It’s a little overdue, but it’s time to get in there.”
Everything inside the Civic Centre has been renovated. The room that used to house the Drumheller Public Library is now the Town Hall reception/front desk and Corporate Services area.
Upstairs, in what used to be the large meeting room, now lies the Council chambers.
In addition, the upper floor, in a restricted part of the building, houses offices for the Town Administration. The Mayor’s office is located next to a large community meeting room and is accessible to the public.
Earlier this year, projections were the moving process would begin in June. Minor delays and the flood have pushed back the timetable.
“We were right in the middle of moving. Town Hall was filled with boxes, but then we had the flood in the meantime, so everything sat in limbo,” said Yemen. “Now, we’re finally able to move things over.”
Mayor Terry Yemen sits at the new Council table in the Drumheller Civic Centre. The Civic Centre has been slowly transformed since the fall of 2012 to be the new home of the Drumheller Town Hall. It is expected the move from the current hall to new will take place later this month.
The move of Town Hall to the Civic Centre was confirmed early in 2012. The desire was to have the municipal centre of Drumheller in a central location and modernized. Given the age of the current Town Hall, it was felt renovating it was not practical as it would have taken considerable work and money to bring the building up to current building codes.
The cost of the renovation was initially estimated to be $2 million. Of that, $1.5 million was covered by provincial grants.
The Civic Center was gutted last fall and construction has proceeded ever since to create a new space for the heart of the Town’s governance.
A grand opening is tentatively planned for September.
