Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As the Minister said, of that 8,400 square metres, 5,000 is tied up with the Bellanca Building. So while that is on the market, if you take most of the building it would be available. If you wanted to rent a floor, it’s likely not available. But to the question, I think we would estimate – and I would have to go back and check with my staff for the latest number – but it’s probably in the 3 to 5 percent range. Thank you.
Thank you, deputy minister. Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you very much. I find that to be possibly a little bit on the low side given some of the statistics that I know that are out there. I think that’s probably where the problem lies. It’s a bit of a disconnect in terms of what we have, the department has in terms of vacancy rate for commercial real estate versus what’s probably out there for Yellowknife.
Mr. Chair, I’m getting numbers somewhere in the order of 12 to 14 percent of vacancy and I guess I need to get a grasp on this. So, will the department commit and provide the Member a full breakdown on what numbers they have for commercial vacancy for Yellowknife and would they be able to provide that information before the end of session? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, we can provide that information before the end of session.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you very much. I appreciate that. So, my final question on this one, from the department’s standpoint in terms of having an impact or a negative or positive impact on the commercial space available in any type of town or village, at what point or what critical impact does the vacancy rate have in terms of the economics of that town or village or city? Does the department have a certain target number? What I mean is when the vacancy of commercial real estate gets above a certain 7 percent, does that have a negative impact on the so-called rates in that area that the government is working on? Does the department have a specific target that they look at, especially for Yellowknife, where if we’re reaching that vacancy rate there is some concern? Is there a special target figure that PWS has to monitor when we get to that critical factor of vacancy versus occupied commercial space?
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Deputy Minister Guy.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think the targets that we look toward is just having a balanced portfolio in terms of ratio between leased and owned, which is typical for what the government would have in its portfolio based on best portfolio management practices in terms of the overall available percentage of vacant space where certainly we have not set a target for what we think that should be in Yellowknife. We think that industry best practice is determined with a reasonable level would be usually in the 5 to 7 percent range would be normal to deal with the term and renewal of the portfolio as mid-life retrofits take place.
Thank you, Mr. Buy. Mr. Dolynny.
I’m good. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate it.
Alright, committee. Next on my list I have Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I see a couple of things here with the shop replacements. I guess focusing first on the Inuvik shop replacement and just going through the substantiation sheet here. I guess the first question would be: When is the expected construction and ready for move in for the groups that would be moving into the new building?
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We are expecting the majority of the construction to be in 2017-18. So, at the end of that fiscal year the building should be ready for occupation.
Just in terms of the background on this building and some of the high heating costs, the foundation problems, poorly insulated walls, why wouldn’t this be kind of fast-tracked, especially when it got approval from the Peer Review Committee on April 21, 2011? Why has it taken so long to start the construction and now we’ll have to wait until 2017-18? Because with the poor insulation, the high heating costs, those all equal to high utility costs. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
We will be starting construction next season, ’16-17. About 25 percent of the budget will be spent this coming construction season.
I guess, in the interim, while the building is getting constructed, is there anything being done to the current building in terms of the foundation problems as well as the insulation that’s probably resulting, as I said, in high utility costs, and is there also a safety issue with the foundation? If there are foundation problems, is there a safety issue for the people working in the building?
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Deputy Minister Guy.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Member’s correct; the existing buildings are quite old and there are a number of lifecycle issues with them, but we have taken steps to ensure that they are safe to occupy. We have stabilized the foundations. We also have, the staff are working in a number of locations throughout the community. We have some leased storage space that some of their equipment and tools are stored in and we also have a number of vacated buildings that are slated to be disposed of with the completion of this project. But in the short term, we are taking steps to make sure that they are suitable to use and as this is a new project for consideration in the plan, we are looking forward to moving forward and getting those people into a modern shop environment where they can provide better services to our clients. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for the update on that. Just in regards to the Capital Asset Retrofit Program, I think it’s a good program and just reading the substantiation sheet, I think it’s being well served and well used and we’re seeing some of the paybacks on that. But if you look at the shop replacements for both Inuvik and Fort Simpson and then you look at the one for Norman Wells, there’s included a wood pellet boiler in Norman Wells. Why wasn’t that also an option for Fort Simpson or Inuvik when building the new shops?
That’s an excellent question. In Fort Simpson we have a central heat plant there that’s a biomass plant and it’s adjacent to the site where this new building that’s under construction now is going to be located and we plan on connecting that to the biomass district heating system in Fort Simpson. So, that’s been part of the plans and we’re proceeding on that basis.
The Member is correct; in Norman Wells in their Capital Asset Program we are putting in a wood pellet boiler there, as well, and we certainly will be looking at Inuvik as our priority consideration as we get into the development of that project. We will likely be considering one there as well.
Thank you, deputy minister. Next on the list I have Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Would the Minister be able to estimate what our approximate electricity demand is of all our assets in Yellowknife? I know I’m asking for some details here. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We do not have that information with us here today but we can get that information and provide it to the committee.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks to the Minister for that. I didn’t expect you to have it right on you, so I appreciate that.
I don’t know the degree to which you would have your finger on the pulse, but I’m wondering what the breakdown is of our lighting in all our Yellowknife assets in terms of energy-efficient lighting. Would we be able to estimate, say, have we converted 10 percent to LEDs, and I don’t know where there are still T12s and T8s around or whether we’ve got better standards now. Something that would give me an idea of how far along we’ve come so far in converting our Yellowknife assets, lighting, to the most energy-efficient options.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Deputy Minister Guy.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Certainly, I would say we’ve gone through several cycles of upgrading lighting in our Yellowknife facilities. We used to have the lower efficiency fluorescent lights we went through, when that technology was the newest technology, and upgraded most of them to the most efficient fluorescent technology that was available in the day.
In terms of the LED lighting, which we believe is the emerging technology, we are now going back through and looking for opportunities to upgrade those lighting packages again. So, really there’s quite a bit of work to do to go to that next level with LED lighting and we’re starting to do that through some of the work in this plant.
Much of our exterior lighting has been converted. The floodlights and those types of fixtures that are on most of the night on photo cells, they have been more advanced technology. They were some of the earlier ones that were easier to put in, but now that the general purpose lighting has become more cost-effective and more reasonable we’re going back now and starting the analysis. So I think as we move forward with the Capital Asset Retrofit Program we are going to see many more projects like that as that technology becomes more mainstream.
Thank you, deputy minister. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks to the deputy minister for that information. I’m wondering: after lighting, considering electricity demand, what is our next biggest opportunity for energy efficiency improvements in Yellowknife assets.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Guy.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. There are a number of things in the mechanical systems, the circulation pumps, moving to variable frequency drive on our air handlers and on our glycol pumps. Our recirculation pumps are another opportunity. We’ve got lots of projects that we’ve completed along those lines in the Capital Asset Retrofit Fund. They have shown significant quick paybacks and reductions in electrical consumption. Lighting control systems that have outside lighting sensors that can dim down the lights in office space and make better use of the natural lighting is another area where we’ve done a lot of work, and we continue to retrofit on that. Then, obviously, we are also seeing the decrease and the reduction in the cost around solar technology, so we’re starting to look at opportunities to use more solar panels and solar generation in our projects and in our buildings.
Thanks for that good information. I guess, since you bring up solar, what’s the potential for our Yellowknife building assets? Do they typically have roofs that are suitable for decent sized installations with respect to the buildings demand?
In the Capital Asset Retrofit Program we have two smaller scale solar projects that we’re going to put on government assets. They’re not in Yellowknife, but there is one on the new shop in Norman Wells which we will be putting on to see how well we can integrate that technology into government buildings. We’re also doing one, I believe, on a health centre in Wrigley as well. We are doing a review to see what the potential is to put solar on some of our roofs in Yellowknife to see if we can use that space. But we also have to take into account the impact that those panels might have on snow load or snow accumulation, the operation of air handling equipment, air conditioning equipment, and other facilities that are on the roof, so there are some technical aspects that we have to evaluate when we do that study as well as the shadow studies from adjacent buildings. We’re starting to look at those opportunities, but I don’t have a total number yet from our staff on what the potential would be.
Just for the Yellowknife assets, what sort of schedule would you require to come up with those estimates considering the issues that you’ve mentioned there, speaking to the deputy minister, to have some sort of an idea to be able to move to a program of implementation?
The total number of assets we have in Yellowknife is not that many. I would think in the major assets we have a central warehouse out by McDonald’s; we have the Data Centre; we have the Laing Building, the new office building, the Stuart Hodgson Building and our North Slave regional office. I don’t think we have very many other large office spaces with roofs that we could potentially utilize. Most of the other ones are leased space or owned by others. I think we could complete that evaluation reasonably quickly, but it would take, I assume, several months to do the engineering, the analysis and the costing on it beyond that.
One last question, and I appreciate this information. Was the new building constructed with the potential of solar on its roof in mind, and associated with that, do we now make sure that that’s a consideration when we design buildings and construct buildings?
The new office building, certainly, I think we did do an analysis at the time and it didn’t seem to be feasible, but as the technology and costing changes, it may be feasible. I can recall back when we did the Data Centre, we did a similar exercise and it wasn’t feasible cost-wise. There was no business case to do it there. We looked at whether we could use it for charging the batteries in the UPSs, for example, and it wasn’t something that was feasible from a business case, but we’re going back and re-evaluating those options again. So I think as we look at the potential, there is still a possibility of perhaps using a new office building going forward as an opportunity for solar.
Thanks again for that information. Just the last part, do we now, when we build buildings, routinely sort of consider the design of the roofing or the exterior with the potential of solar in mind?
That’s one of the things we’re looking at, updating our Good Building Practices to have a more robust chapter and prescription around those requirements going forward. As I said earlier, there are a number of projects here that we are embarking on through this plan that are going to have solar that weren’t originally envisioned, but as we go forward we will look at that, like we do with biomass, as possibly something that we will consider on a mandatory basis on new infrastructure.
Thank you, deputy minister. Committee, we’re on page 74, asset management, infrastructure investments, $14.792 million. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Page 76, energy, infrastructure investments, $295,000.
Agreed.
Page 78, Technology Services Centre, infrastructure investments, $1.890 million.
Agreed.
Return to page 73, Public Works and Services, total budget, infrastructure investments, $16.977 million.
Agreed.
