Nordmin Engineering Ltd. president Chris Dougherty has taken another step forward in making the former Sir John A. MacDonald public school into his company’s new headquarters.
City council voted in favour of rezoning the former school on Logan Avenue and turning it into a technical office for the company. But the agreement came with the condition that Nordmin Engineering continues to maintain the green space used by the neighbourhood as well as other conditions including conducting a traffic study.
Dougherty said he was delighted with the news since now they can move forward with completing additional permits to get the building reconstruction underway.
He said he sees this approval as an early win.
“We have looked into the traffic study,” Dougherty said following the decision. “At this point it is more of a traffic opinion that needs to be rendered for the city’s engineering department. Based on those requires the request for a full traffic study will be reexamined.”
Some modification of the building has already begun. With council’s approval in the bag, Dougherty said they hope to start on the internal modifications sometime in the New Year if not sooner.
In other business, council decided to change the direction previously given to the Superior North Emergency Medical Services.
Council had asked EMS Chief Norm Gale to discuss the issues of closures with the 14 other EMS stations in the district. Gale said if council hadn’t given him the option of dropping that obligation then he would have had to keep consulting with the other stations and find common ground in order to find ways to reduce service.
“With this decision I will no longer have to go out and make those consultations and we will proceed with making a plan that includes 14 stations in the district. What this means is we’re not moving forward deliberately to discuss potential for closing. We’re going to proceed with the status quo with the 14 stations, maintain that and see what transpires.
Gale added that next week there will be another report coming to council that will discuss the issue of the number of standby hours paramedic can do.
