Renovations at the Thompson Nicola Regional Districts Headquarters in Downtown Kamloops are expected to be complete by the spring.

TNRD CAO Scott Hildebrand says once the renovations, which began roughly a month ago, are complete, he says it will expand office spaces and create an Emergency Operations Centre.

“That being said, this building is constructed of cement and steel and it’s very difficult to do so this project is taking a little bit more more time. But we’ll be done here in spring.”

Hildebrand updated TNRD directors at Thursdays board meeting, explaining the changes will allow the building to grow effectively and efficiently.

“I was determined that our library distribution system, which a lot of you wouldn’t see down on our third floor is being transitioned to our second floor in the library space. It then allows us to expand floors three and four,” he said.

Currently, the operation team works on three separate floors in the building, something which Hildebrand notes caused issues during the 2021 wildfire season.

“In the past, all of the supplies and the computers and all the information that we have would be brought into a meeting room here and then once the emergency is over to be taken back out and put in storage, which is very inconvenient and of course in a very inefficient.”

“In 2021 actually, we had to take over the board room and displace the board, we then had to have meetings at a different facility which of course had costs and effort around that.”

Hildebrand says the renovations which began roughly a month ago, will allow the capacity to grow for the next 7 to 10 years.

Back in November, the new TNRD board of directors approved the contracts to spend up to $520,000 to upgrade the Regional District headquarters in downtown Kamloops.