COMOX VALLEY – The Comox Valley Regional District (CVRD) Board recently approved the Civic Centre – Regional Office Building Project schematic design and financing strategy. For several years the CVRD has been working towards a board strategic priority of developing a regional office facility.
The CVRD office is an extremely important aspect of CVRD operations, offering essential services to residents and housing key assets including IT infrastructure, corporate records and fleet vehicles. The current office is problematic due to its flood prone location, inadequate space and expensive lease cost.
The schematic design features a durable, cost effective, energy efficient, attractive community building and the project is estimated to cost 11.7 million dollars based on Class D estimates.
The building will be built to LEED Gold standards and will include Passive House features as well as a post-disaster emergency operations centre, shared board and meeting room opportunities and will be designed to maximize solar exposure to reduce energy costs.
The project will be funded through a combination of $2 million from reserve funds, $1.5 million of grant funding from electoral area community works funds, and the remaining $8.2 million through long term borrowing. The $8.2 million would be funded through a loan authorization bylaw approval process with long term debt borrowing for a maximum 30 years to ensure affordability for residents.
The approved financing strategy for the construction of the regional office building will be tax neutral to residents. The CVRD board identified using an Alternative Approval Process (AAP) to obtain public support for the borrowing as the project is tax neutral to residents and an AAP is a more cost effective elector approval process.
On June 12 from 4-7 pm, residents are invited to a public open house at the CVRD Boardroom (550B Comox Road) to provide feedback on the schematic design and learn about the financing strategy. The open house will provide residents an opportunity to learn how feedback was incorporated within the conceptual design phase, ask questions of staff and the architect and provide feedback on the schematic design.
As part of this process a public survey will be administered to gather feedback regarding the schematic design. If you are unable to make this open house please visit our website to see the schematic design and submit your feedback online. Feedback will be collected until Friday, June 23 at noon at which point it will be provided to the architect for consideration during the detailed design process.
To learn more about the financing strategy, schematic designs or the project please visit the following link.