Social Services Headquarters to be Built in Sault Ste. Marie

Social Services is constructing a new building on the west side of Brock Street between Albert Street East and Wellington Street East. City councillors have just agreed to close most of Brock Street for 14 weeks. The contractor, Matheson Constructors Ltd., will have to fence off Brock Street from Albert to the northerly lane-way adjacent to 181 Albert until June lst.

Sault Star states that the new headquarters for the District of Sault Ste. Marie Social Services Administration at 540 Albert Street will join all social services divisions including housing services, early years, Ontario works and corporate services.

The plan will create one physical space which will allow all organizations to:

 

 - Streamline services

 - Create cost efficiencies

 - Improve access to services for clients and the community

 

"We want it to come together as one family. Right now, the current system has people moving to multiple buildings to get different services and it just does not make sense for us to ask them to jump through hoops. We should be the organization that is truly trying to wrap the services around them. What we want to be able to do is almost make it a one-stop shop where people can come and get the services in one location, rather than having to attend multiple appointments to get the same service."

DSSMSSAB CEO | Mike Nadeau

 

An article in SooToday states that the building will be a 33,000 square foot, four-storey structure.

Matheson Constructors Ltd. of Aurora won a $165.3 million contract to built the new headquarters.

 

"On the Sault Ste. Marie taxpayer side of things, I'm really proud to say that not only is this not going to cost the levy any extra money, but we should be seeing some savings as those efficiencies happen from all being under one roof. We cast a really wide net to make sure this was the best option, both from a service perspective and from a cost efficiency perspective, and it was."

Ward 2 councillor & DSSMSSAB Chair | Luke Dufour

 

It is anticipated that the existing Ontario Works building at 540 Albert Street East will remain there until a decision is made on the structure's future. Public Health Ontario has a lease on a portion of the building in place until 2029. Nadeau says the building has been there for about 65 years. The new building will be built next to the older structure.

 

 

Another article in SooToday, reports that Carl Rumiel, the city's manager of design and transportation engineering stated that construction of the new building on Brock Street is being impacted by lack of available space for material and equipment storage, as well as the offloading of trucks. This has caused a significant amount of traffic congestion during business hours, has potential to delay the project and has created a potentially dangerous traffic situation. For that reason, road closure is necessary.

Rumiel further stated that the Ministry of Labour has directed the contractor to bring another site trailer and a further washroom trailer to the site to meet their COVID-19 requirements, which will cause further congestion on the site spilling over to Brock Street, and could potentially create an unsafe flow of traffic.

The new headquarters is estimated to be completed in early 2023.

 

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