Sask. archives move to new building months behind schedule

It’s taking the Saskatchewan Archives a bit longer to get into its new building.

In February, the province announced it had bought the CBC building in Regina to use some of the space for the new Sask. Archives building, consolidating all of the materials that were spread around the province at that time into one building. The CBC would lease its space in the building.

The public service areas of the new building were supposed to be open in August of this year but now, three months later, the province is still in the middle of the permitting process for building renovations.

“There’s a lot of measures that are beyond our control. We do need permit approval to proceed with any kind of construction there, so that’s what we’re waiting on,” explained provincial archivist Linda McIntyre.

According to an emailed statement from the provincial government, when it made the announcement about the new building the province didn’t have possession of it yet, and it took longer than anticipated to get that.

“Appropriate time was taken to assess the building against Archives’ and CBC’s needs, obtain building reports and engage expertise on accommodating specialized archival records storage requirements,” the statement said.

The project is in the last part of the design phase, according to McIntyre, and building permits were applied for with the City of Regina in September.

Extensive renovations need to be done to the building to prepare for the housing of the archive materials, including security and environmental measures, installing humidity and temperature controls, as well as putting in fire suppression for a record storage area.

The renovations will focus on the record storage area first, then on the public service areas.

Despite the delays, McIntyre doesn’t feel the project is behind.

“I think the complexity of the situation is what has been entailing that longer planning period,” said McIntyre.

She explained the archives workers have been doing what they can in the meantime to prepare for the move — consolidating the materials in the current Regina facility, doing inventories and preparing any odd-sized records for the move.

The new archives building would have been open longer and on more days, but since it isn’t open yet, the current Regina building has expanded its opening hours to five days a week to compensate.

McIntyre didn’t have a hard date for when the move will actually happen.

“We hope that everything is completed in 2020 and that we’re into that space,” she said. “When (it happens) in 2020, it’s not definite in this point in time.”

There may be a delay, but McIntyre said the workers at the archives are still very excited about the move.