After more than three years since it burned, and a year since staff moved in, Starland County officially held a grand opening for its new office and shop in Morrin.
A healthy crowd of ratepayers as well as elected officials from surrounding areas, and MP for Battle River-Crowfoot, Damien Kurek came out to congratulate Starland County on their new facility on August 5.
“When this building was designed council and staff wanted to build a facility that met the needs of the operations that happen here every day in order to serve Starland county,” said Reeve Steve Wannstrom at the ribbon-cutting ceremony. “We feel this building has met those needs for the county and the people and will for a long time in the foreseeable future.”
Kurek brought greetings to the county and lauded the council.
“When it comes to the grassroots, the real base of making sure folks are served are municipal governments…you see the value and the hard work it takes to ensure that ratepayers are well served, to make sure the base level of government provides those very hands-on services, and it very often does not get the acknowledgment that is deserved,” said Kurek.
Starland County lost its office in a fire in May of 2018, destroying the building and more than 100 years of archives. At the same time, they were budgeting to build a new infrastructure shop for quite some time. Its shop was built in 1968 and it served as the maintenance facility. They had outgrown the shop, some equipment couldn’t fit and it was aging.
“Back in the early 2000s, it was determined in our long-term planning process that we would be needing a public works shop,” said CAO Shirley Bremer. “We began the process of building a new shop in 2010 and started setting aside our Municipal Sustainability Initiative (MSI) funding in hopes of a new shop at some point.”
“The immediate need to replace the administration office together with the long term plan to replace the public works shop started a discussion of the possibility of building one large complex housing both.”
Eagle Builders of Blackfalds was the winning bidder. They began construction in 2019 and handed over the keys in July 2020.
The complex is 38,298 square feet, and about 18,000 feet is dedicated to the shop, with numerous bays, as well as ample space for inventory and storage. On the administration side, the are new offices for every department as well as council chambers, which is set up as an emergency operations hub. ATB Financial is also housed in the facility. By combining the space they were able to realize savings.
“It is a beautiful building, well designed, practical, and designed with a lot of potential for future growth as needed,” said Bremer.
The contract price was $8.263 million and it was realized through their insurance payout and the MSI funding. Wannstrom says it is great to be able to tell ratepayers the price I paid in full.
“It is great to be able to do that, and ratepayers know it was done responsibly,” said Wannstrom.
