Jeff Green | Feb 17, 2021


A process that has been crawling along for half a decade is about to reach the final decision point before Frontenac County tax payers will be burdened with construction costs  to renovate the Frontenac County Offices.

The offices are located in a building that is called the “Old House”, a former home that is located at the south-west edge of the horseshoe shaped Fairmount Home Long Term Care facility, that is owned by Frontenac County.

The offices were flagged as inadequate, relatively early in the tenure of current Chief Administrative Officer, Kelly Pender.

In 2016, when the project was first brought forward, Pender noted that the building did not conform to the provincial accessibility act, that it was not set up to use space efficiently, and would be less suitable to the county's needs in the future.

At that time, Pender supported a proposed solution that would have cost $2.8 million, the same cost as the current proposal, which will go before Frontenac County Council, if approved by a meeting of a task force later this week.

In 2016, the cost did not find favour with South Frontenac Mayor Ron Vandewal, who said “I haven't seen a number here that I can support. “We could build a stand-alone building for less. There is no way I would support this.”

Since then, the idea of a new building, to house Frontenac County, the Cataraqui Region Conservation Authority (CRCA), and South Frontenac Township, was looked at.

South Frontenac pulled out of the project in 2016. 

Since then the idea of renovating the “Old House”, and an adjacent space currently used by Frontenac Paramedic Services, for use as the Frontenac County and CRCA offices, complete with a council chamber that can be accessed from an external door, has gained favour with the task force that has been looking at options.

At a meeting on December 16, 2020, the task force authorised the firm, Colbourne & Kembel Architects, to develop detailed designs for the project.

The main piece of additional information, that is being brought to the task force this week, is the price tag, as the process is about to reach the final “decision point”, outlined in a work plan that was approved in 2018.

In addition to considering the drawings that have been prepared by Colbourne and Kembel, a key component of the current stage of the process will be to look at how the Frontenac County portion of the project will be funded.

The last time Frontenac County completed a renovation project, it was the renovation of  what is now called the Rotary Auditorium, at the other end of the horseshoe, at the Fairmount Home site. That project, which was completed in 2013 at a cost of $1.5 million, included features which were devoted to creating a multi-use room that could be used as a council chamber for Frontenac County, in addition to a variety of uses for Fairmount Home residents.

Frontenac County Council has conducted the majority of their meetings in the auditorium since it opened, but it has not been an ideal location. The room is large and, even with a portable sound system, it is hard for audience members, and members of council as well, to hear each other.

The entrance to the auditorium also provides access to Fairmount Home, raising security concerns. Since the COVID-19 pandemic arrived a year ago, those concerns have been intensified as Fairmount Home staff and management have focused their efforts on keeping Fairmount Home virus free.

By including plans for a dedicated council chamber as a central feature in the “Old House” renovation project, Frontenac County staff and council are preparing to abandon the auditorium.

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