Flin Flon’s fire hall, RCMP detachment and community hall will soon undergo a structural assessment by a Winnipeg-based engineering firm.
News of the project came during city council’s Feb. 21 meeting, where a measure about the project came up and was passed. The City awarded the contract for the work to structural engineering firm Lavergne, Draward and Associates (listed as LDA Structural Engineers in city council’s agenda), working on the recommendation of council’s Engineering Services committee.
The reason for the assessments, according to city council members, is to check for any possible structural issues with the buildings, not because of any sort of emergency repairs needed immediately for the buildings.
“Those buildings are more than 30 years old, closer to 40. There’s some wear and tear on them,” said councillor Bill Hanson, chair of the engineering committee.
“There’s not structural concerns or anything - they’re not going to fall down - but they need a lot of work. The community hall needs a lot of work, the Whitney Forum needs work, everything we have needs money thrown at it.”
The assessments will be conducted this spring.
Mayor George Fontaine said that the City and councillors have heard reports of possible areas of repair, mentioning how repairs were conducted at the Flin Flon Aqua Centre before the building was permanently closed and demolished - the City was told of possible issues, then got engineers to assess the site before determining repairs.
“There’s some similarities to the pool in that - there’s some reports of rusting metal framework and things like that. You can’t take that lightly and we have to look at how to study and decide if that’s something we can do something about, if it’s dangerous or that sort of thing,” said Fontaine.
The building that contains the Flin Flon Fire Department base and the Flin Flon RCMP Detachment was first opened in 1981 on the former site of the Flin Flon bus depot. Flin Flon’s fire hall has occupied area near north Main Street since the 1940s.
The community hall was built in 1958 and has been remodeled several times since its construction.
Manitoba RCMP have discussed building a new headquarters for the Flin Flon detachment since at least 2020, with details of a new detachment base first becoming public knowledge in early 2021. The location of a new base - just west of the community hall, on the flat between it and the Hudbay compound - has been confirmed, as has the estimated price tag - about $7.6 million - but construction has not yet started, with Manitoba RCMP stating that similar buildings in other communities will be built first.
“They have a new building planned - they’ve got plans for it, there’s a spot for it. We’ve done everything we can do now - it’s now actually up to the RCMP brass to decide when its their turn to get the financing,” said Fontaine.
