Construction begins on major multi-million Public Works shop in Cold Lake

Public Works employees in Cold Lake will have a new place to call home in the coming years.

The City is pouring massive investment into a new, all-in-one Public Works shop, centrally located on Museum Road.

Projected at roughly a $35 million price tag, this has been on the books for multiple years for the City to tackle, and work has now begun.

“I think we’ve spent almost a good part of three years already in the ramp up in the design,” said chief administrative officer Kevin Nagoya to Lakeland Connect.

“That started with the previous council saying that the fleet is already beyond the use of the existing public workshop. Obviously, there’s that issue and then also the size of the organization requires a retooling of how we’re going to operate out within the facilities that we have — or do we have to build anew.” 

Currently, public works uses its shop in Cold Lake North, as well as one at the west end for storage.

The new facility would bring all of this under one roof, also allowing for bays to do maintenance on the city equipment. It would also house the buses, have office space for administration, and accommodate future growth.

At the Dec. 13, 2022 city council meeting, council agreed to amend a borrowing bylaw to increase their lending from $11 million to $18 million to anticipate increased costs with inflation and scope in the first phase.

“We got started on the clearing, and then the necessary environmental approvals in order to proceed with the project. And of course, site grading being commenced last fall, then that should finish up and you have the deficiencies this early spring. Then, once a site grading is completed, we can move into the underground utilities,” said Nagoya on the current steps before going out to tender. 

“There’s going to have to be some stormwater management, water mains and sanitary sewers, that’s going to have to be installed in order to service the site. That will commence the summer. And then hopefully we start the facility build this fall.” 

Cold Lake’s Public Works department has been recognized as one of the best for a population under 25000, winning the Canadian Public Works Association Award in 2022 for the fourth time.

Mayor Craig Copeland said it’s a long time coming for the city staff to have a better space.

“Our public workshop is in poor shape,” he told Lakeland Connect. “They’ve been waiting a long time while we built recreation first in Cold Lake over the years and fix the underground’s. The public workshop has been long overdue and so we’re pretty excited to finally tackle that.”

Nagoya anticipates the project to take 24 months to complete.

There may also be future debentures the City looks at for cash flow to fund the facility.