The Kneehill County office is getting a fresh new look this year. After nearly 25 years, the county office has undergone a facelift on the exterior of the building in addition to some needed changes inside.
Renovations to the office are nearly complete and are expected to be done by mid September.
“We decided to do some renovations, but stick with stuff that’s more maintenance in nature,” said Kneehill County CAO Kevin Miner. “We modernized it a little bit, without being fancy.”
The renovations have been ongoing for the past year. The building exterior got new frontage, new stucco, boxed windows, the H-Vac units were changed, a new skin on the roof, some work on the walls to get drainage away from the building, and some landscaping out front. Inside, the downstairs meeting room and council chambers were renovated.
“Instead of doing this as one big package, we did it as a bunch of smaller jobs, just so you don’t need a big outfit and some of the local guys can bid on the projects,” said Miner. “Plus, when you’re looking at bigger outfits, so then your money is basically going to leave town.”
The decision to renovate the county office came after it was decided Kneehill would not be moving into a new, larger building.
“We thought we were going to get a new office, but that was delayed, so we did some maintenance instead,” said Miner. “We did a series of public meetings, our annual ratepayer meetings. We showed what the plans for the new office building were and wanted to hear feedback.”
Many of the comments, according to Miner, expressed concern about Kneehill County moving and leaving another empty building downtown in their wake. Another concern was if the Municipal Sustainability Initiative (MSI) funding, which would be used to fund construction of a new building, was discontinued.
The County Council heeded those concerns and decided to remain in the current building and save the MSI funding. Council would wait until the county had guaranteed funding before moving ahead.
However, the office will eventually need to move according to Miner.
“I’m sure we’ll be here for a few more years,” said Miner. “It’s simply not big enough, we can’t go anywhere.”