| Sep 02, 2016


Anyone who has been to the Frontenac County offices in what is known as “The Old House” will know that it is an apt name. The space still looks and feels like a house. There are large unused rooms, a round staircase reminiscent of Gone with the Wind, and small former bedrooms are divided to make up cramped desk space for workers. Accessibility is a major issue.

The building was originally located in Frontenac County, in Kingston Township, when it was purchased in 1965 for $78,000. Frontenac County then built the Fairmount Home on the same property and the two buildings are connected by an annex. In 1998, Kingston Township joined with the City of Kingston, but the County maintained ownership of Fairmount Home and “The Old House”, as the County office building had been dubbed.

While it is certainly odd that the county office and the location of most meetings of County Council is in Kingston, the fact is that the building was already there and any other option would involve spending a bunch of money

That is about to change, however.

In 2014, the consulting form KPMG prepared a Service Delivery and Organizational Review of Frontenac County operations. The review was wide-ranging, and it said the following about the county office: “The physical work environment for the staff assigned to the Old House is not a professional office environment. Work stations are scattered throughout the various rooms of a residential house, which results in a noisy and inefficient work environment.”

The report also said that Council might consider building a new office somewhere in Frontenac County.

In March of 2016, Council received a preliminary report from Chief Administrative Officer Kelly Pender, which listed eight options to deal with the deficiencies at the Old House.

Option 1 was “do nothing”, and option 8 was 'decommission the building and move to a new site”. In between, a number of other options were presented.

Council instructed staff to explore three of the options, all of which involved making changes to the existing building to comply with accessibility regulations, and looked at making improvements to create a more usable space.

Council members experienced quite a bit of sticker shock in July when Pender's second report included cost estimates for the various options.

Pender was leaning towards option #6 from the first report, to “convert the Old House to a new use and build an addition to accommodate accessibility and productivity needs.” That option was costed out at $4.4 million, so Pender also provided option 6B, kind of an option 6 lite, at an estimated cost of $2.8 million. His recommendation was for Council to proceed with 6B.

To no one's surprise, the $2.8 million renovation was not exactly embraced by Council.

Instead Council decided to appoint a task force of its members to look further into the options. The task force was appointed at a special meeting of Council last Wednesday (August 24). It includes Natalie Nossal from Frontenac Islands, Ron Vandewal from South Frontenac, and John Inglis from North Frontenac.

The task force's mandate includes “carrying out an analysis and space review of the County of Frontenac Administrative Building”

Given that mandate, here is some free advice.

Don't put any more money into the Old House. Start seriously looking at building an office for Frontenac County that will give the county some profile, at least for those of us who live here.

Pender's reports provide a lot of basic information on costs, at least the way the county spends money. The County has 22 staff. The typical allocation of office space is 175 – 250 square feet per person. New construction was costed by him at $300 per square foot. The reports also add between 22% and 25% in accumulated additional costs for design, project management, and contingency.

Take the high end of all these figures. Let's say there will be 30 people working for Frontenac County in 10 years, and let's say they each need the full 250 square feet. Let's also say the added costs amount to the full 25%.

In order to build a sufficiently sized 7,500 square foot brand-new office building, under those parameters, it would cost $2.675 million.

There may be added costs purchasing a lot and there would be well and septic costs as well, which would probably result in a project in the $3 million range. With a bit of restraint it might even be possible to build a 7,500 square foot building for under $3 million. Many others have done just that, and some local contractors might be interested in putting a competitive bid together.

The advantage of such a building would be that it would be purposely built as an office, and added features in the site plan and landscaping could turn it into a showcase for Frontenac County know-how, something that is desperately needed.

In his initial report to Council, Kelly Pender said the fact that the existing building is located in Kingston “has been an issue for some members of council”. He also said, “On the positive side the office is located in close proximity to the 401 and the City of Kingston, which makes recruitment of staff and access to city services reasonable.”

There are 27,000 permanent residents of Frontenac County. Perhaps locating the office close to where they live would help recruit the 25 or staff that the county needs from our own pool of talent. Not that a City of Kingston resident couldn't commute to Verona, Parham, Sydenham or Sharbot Lake. There are plenty of people from those communities who commute to Kingston each day with little muss or fuss for gainful employment.

If money is going to be spent on an office for Frontenac County, that money should be spent in Frontenac County.

Every other jurisdiction in the world does that; why not do it here?

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