WESTLOCK – The $381,000 Heritage Building renovation project, one town officials hopes will lead to the building becoming a social and cultural hub of the community, is finished and now awaits its new tenant, Westlock & District Family and Community Support Services.
FCSS executive director Tracy Proulx said they’re excited for the move, which will see them vacate their second-floor space June 21-25, with the doors of the new office open to the public June 28. Work on the roughly 2,600-plus square-foot project, which included $125,000 for renovation of the building’s washrooms, as well as $256,351 worth of renos to accommodate FCSS, started in late February and wrapped June 4.
“It’s awesome, I’m so impressed with how well it turned out,” she said, noting an official grand opening is slated for September when FCSS will hold its annual parking-lot party.
“(Town community services director) Gerry (Murphy) is absolutely right, we do want to turn it into a hub. We have a big, wide, beautiful hallway that once the lockers are gone we want to make use of — a place for youth to come and hang out. We now have a youth coordinator so she can engage with them there.
“And even just to be able to have coffee on for seniors so they can come and visit us. And maybe we’ll have a senior and a youth in this new space and have some intergenerational activity that just happens naturally.”
Proulx said their old downtown location, which they had been in for the past 12 years, wasn’t ideal, especially for seniors as there wasn’t an elevator. She also hopes that now being near both R.F. Staples and St. Mary schools will allow for more youth walk-in traffic.
“Our old location was never ideal for seniors with those dreaded stairs, so accessibility-wise this move is fantastic. Plus, there’s the additional parking for any events we do,” she continued.
“The proximity to the schools is also a win. We hope that we’re able to capture them for some of the programming we’re going to be doing.”
Town of Westlock project manager Ira Cox said during a June 8 walkthrough of the facility the renovations went smoothly, noting the building is solid and has “good bones.” Cox was also the project manager on the last major reno at the building when town council chambers moved there in 2017.
“I think for the most part, aside from questions on layout, it all flowed perfectly,” said Cox, adding that they hope to eventually remove the old lockers in the hallway and do some other updates to the building inside and out.
“Timelines and work, I’m happy. There was a minor delay on partitions (for the washrooms), but that was due to COVID and not being able to get the materials. Overall, the project went pretty quick, pretty smooth. I’d say this was a medium-sized project because it was a facelift.”
In addition to FCSS, the building is home to the Westlock Municipal Library, while the Westlock Literacy & Learning Centre, which had occupied part of the now-renovated space, has been rolled into the library.
Originally the Heritage Building was part of three separate wings of Westlock Elementary School and in the 1970s it was home to Grade 3-4 students — the new FCSS office takes up four of the old 610-square-foot classrooms.
In the 1980s, WES moved to its current location in Eastglen — that building, constructed in 1970, had been the junior high — while the other two elementary school buildings near the Heritage Building were eventually levelled. The junior high, in turn, then became part of what’s now R.F. Staples School.
