City puts money aside for phase two of accessibility project

Major renovations are underway at City Hall, and money has been earmarked for when it's time to take the next step.

City Council has approved the withdrawal of $100,000 from their General Infrastructure Reserve, which will be used to complete phase two. City Manager Nathan Peto says the biggest change on the way at City Hall involves taking out the safes from when their building used to be a post office.

"There's going to be the installation of a lift, and that lift is going to be able to take residents who need some assistance or wouldn't be able to navigate the stairs themselves from the main floor of City Hall up to the second floor," explains Peto. "Which is where we have our council meetings and public hearings. It's something we've always tried to achieve and now we, with some other funding partners at the table, we're able to do that to improve the in-person accessibility of our Council meetings."

He adds that this will also help other public bodies looking to use the second floor of City Hall as a meeting space.

While it's exciting to look at phase two, the construction can only begin once phase one is completely finished. Peto expects phase one to be completed this year, with phase two beginning immediately after.

"When you have a building like City Hall, it's over 125 years old," notes Peto. "You have to be creative for solutions and I'm really proud of our administrative team for finding solutions to take a historical building, maintain the historical integrity of the building, and yet, add accessibility for all. We're pretty proud of the ingenuity that we've come up with and we're really excited to make this building more accessible for all citizen supporters."

Some of the other changes that will be made involve taking out the second-story bathrooms and remodelling them to also be more accessible, as well as adding doors that are handicap-friendly.

"On behalf of council, we certainly commend the staff for the great work. This shows our commitment to accessibility, to making this building open and accessible to all our citizens," says Councillor Joe Masi. "And, I think that's a commitment that the previous council and this council are proud of. As a matter of fact, we're so proud of it, we've highlighted this in the Association of Manitoba Municipalities magazine so that all of Manitoba sees what a great project this is going to be for our city.