REGINA, Sask. — SGI could move out of its iconic downtown Regina office tower and into SaskTel's head office as the two Crown corporations explore sharing a building to address aging infrastructure.
SaskTel and SGI announced a partnership to examine the possibility of co-locating their offices at SaskTel's headquarters at 2121 Saskatchewan Drive.
Both buildings are nearly five decades old and face infrastructure challenges. SGI has identified several issues at its office tower.
Kent Campbell, SGI president and CEO, said that the current structure needs to address “aging infrastructure” including its “mechanical, heating, cooling and electrical and plumbing systems.” There are also structural issues with the glass panels on the building no longer sealing the building properly, he said.
Fixing this will require not only significant relocation of employees but “also significant capital investment,” he said. There are also issues with the parkade area, and the structure experienced significant flooding after a fire hose started leaking back in August.
That latter incident “really reinforced the need to identify a long term solution for our head office space,” said Campbell. Even before the flood they were assessing options, he said.
The two Crown corporations said in a news release that sharing a workplace has the potential to “deliver significant long-term value for SaskTel and SGI while supporting service delivery for decades to come.”
The CEOs stated that in the coming months, both SaskTel and SGI will undertake validation activities, including engaging industry experts, exploring design requirements, completing technical assessments, and identifying project costs.
The potential relocation of employees would be significant, with some 800 or so SGI employees moving to the SaskTel building to join another 800-900 there.
”We do have space available," said Charlene Gavel, SaskTel president and CEO. "So I think to have a full building here downtown would be great for our employees and the SGI employees to be together as well.”
Gavel said it “makes sense to co-locate from an efficiency perspective.” But she said they still need to “figure out what those cost savings will be. But I do think that there'll be real benefits to having two Crowns in one building.”
The benefit to sharing the space would be “all about the collaboration and the cost savings that would result from two companies being in this building.
We're only at about 56 per cent occupancy right now, so there's certainly room. And as we look to the things that we need to do to maintain the SaskTel building, sharing that with SGI just really makes a lot of sense.”
The SaskTel building itself is 46 years old, almost as old as the SGI building. Gavel said they will be looking into what would be required or replaced at the SaskTel building and what those costs would be.
As for what would be needed, she points to things like the roof, the curtain wall, and those “things in a building that become end-of-life and need to be replaced. So that's what we're going to be really looking at, what is really required at this point in terms of the structure, the mechanical, fire suppression, and all of those sorts of things.”
As for the current SGI building, it is unclear what the future holds. Campbell did not have a cost estimate for replacing all the things that needed done in the SGI building, but did say they an assessment was done in terms of what would need to be replaced.
”And it is quite significant, and so being able to do a co-location in one building where the capital challenges aren't as significant, where you can get everybody together, I think just makes more sense.”
At the very least, Campbell noted the work that would need to be done would include replacing the glass panels, major upgrades to electrical and mechanical, and additional capital upgrades to the parkade as well.
Campbell said a third party is being hired to do an assessment in terms of what should happen if they go ahead with a move. As for whether the existing building could be sold to a new occupant, Campbell said they “really haven't considered specific parties yet apart from hiring the firm.”
He said part of the reason they wanted to have this announcement was “before we start doing the work, we wanted to make sure that we're able to communicate to Regina stakeholders and communicate to our employees that this work is happening so they don't have rumours starting and those types of things.”
As for whether the aging office tower structure could end up being imploded down the road, Campbell said he “certainly wouldn’t want to speculate on that. We certainly have a firm that we’ve hired to look at all the options.”
Campbell acknowledged the SGI building’s importance as a landmark on the Regina skyline.
“So I was born and raised in Regina, and I remember, I think I was nine years old when that building was constructed, so I don't really remember Regina without the SGI building. It is really iconic.”
Campbell also reiterated the move is being contemplated not because of the current financial pressures or the performance of SGI, but because of the “state of our building and what would be required in investing into the future. And this just seems like a better use of money.”
