A $660,000 upgrade to the City of Nanaimo's SARC building is nearly complete. The project had been planned when the nine-year-old building was originally built, a City official said. (Ian Holmes/NanaimoNewsNOW)

By Ian Holmes

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Significant expansion made to City of Nanaimo’s SARC building

Jul 5, 2021 | 5:22 AM

NANAIMO — Crews are concluding $660,000 worth of upgrades to the City’s downtown Service and Resource Centre, home to roughly 200 civil servants.

The City’s director of finance Laura Mercer said it became clear additional offices and meeting rooms were required on the building’s largely vacant top floor.

“When the building was opened in 2012 it was built with room on the third floor for expansion, that has always been the plan,” Mercer told NanaimoNewsNOW.

Additional meeting rooms for the Dunsmuir St. building are in response to more internal and external meetings, Mercer said, who noted the third floor had primarily been unused with a section used for storage.

She said most of their development services department crammed onto the second floor couldn’t continue functioning as it had.

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“It was becoming very crowded down there and as we added some staff, even just a couple, it starts to really impede the space on the second floor.”

The project at the direction of CAO Jake Rudolph began in March and will be competed imminently, Mercer said.

Several departments operate out of the SARC building, including finance, bylaw and engineering.

The nine year old, three-storey building with underground parking is where the largest number number of City employees work each day.

Mercer said the SARC was initially constructed for $14.4 million dollars.

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ian@nanaimonewsnow.com

On Twitter: @reporterholmes