By James Peters

Eby: Decision to scrap new BCLC HQ will save $90 million

Jan 18, 2019 | 3:24 PM

KAMLOOPS — The province’s minister in charge of the BC Lottery Corporation says this week’s decision to shelve plans for a new headquarters in Kamloops will save BC taxpayers about $90 million.

Speaking to CFJC Today, David Eby defended a third-party review that found the current building — a half-century old former department store on Seymour Street West — has more life in it.

“The building’s in good shape,” said Eby. “It needs new boilers and it needs new cladding. As you expand the warehouse, you’ll have to do some work in the data centre. It needs to be made more robust in the event of catastrophic failure. But there’s no sense in replacing this building. It’s got lots of life ahead of it.”

The Crown corporation retained a real estate consulting firm to look into timelines for building a new office, and began pre-qualifying in preparation for Requests for Proposals.

In November 2017, Eby told CFJC Today plans for the new headquarters were moving ahead, “certainly with my support.”

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On Thursday, BCLC announced it is following the recommendations of an independent third-party review, which reported the existing building is still usable.

“That saves the public about $90 million,” said Eby on Friday.

“I’ve heard concerns that maybe this means something about the future of BCLC in Kamloops. Nothing could be further from the truth. Our future hiring is in Kamloops. The headquarters is in Kamloops. We’ll do the work needed on the building to make sure that it will serve long into the future.”

Eby says the about-face is an example of the NDP government taking “a different approach to oversight of BCLC” than the previous Liberal government.

“Whether it comes to the issue of money laundering and regulation, the issue of due diligence on this new building, the software program where $7 million was spent and the anti-money laundering software was scrapped. That money is gone,” said Eby.

The headquarters houses about 450 employees.

While Eby projects that number will grow in coming years, that growth will not be dramatic.

“I heard an astonishing number from the local MLA, that he was thinking there were going to be 400 new people at (BCLC). I’m not sure what he thinks those folks will be doing,” said Eby. “We don’t have a massive expansion of gambling underway in the province. As the population grows, there will be steady increases. That growth will be in Kamloops. It will be at the BCLC facility there. We don’t have capacity anywhere else to add people.”

As part of its preparation for a new headquarters, BCLC purchased adjacent land in the same block, just west of the existing building.

Eby says it remains to be seen what happens to that land.

“This is a very strategic set of properties — City Hall, BC Lottery Corporation and the lots that BCLC has purchased — in terms of Kamloops’s future. And I know BCLC leadership and the government of BC certainly are very engaged with Kamloops on the future of the city as a tech hub and how we can support that. So I’m sure we’ll be forming part of those conversations with BCLC, necessary renovations and improvements of the facility to support growth and the vision of Kamloops.”