Nearly five months after the Elgin Street parole office was relocated to Bank Street, the federal government is still paying rent on the building with no plans for a new use of the space.
Local activist Albert Galpin says the former location of the parole office contradicted Corrections Canada’s written guidelines stipulating parole offices cannot be located within 300 metres of schools, parks or residential neighbourhoods.
In 2006, then-minister of Public Safety Stockwell Day promised the move would be complete by 2009. After repeated delays, the office was relocated to the Jackson Building, at Bank and Slater streets, in August.
With plenty of notice the parole office would be moving, Galpin questions why Public Works didn’t plan for a new tenant.
“Public Works had at least two years to plan something to go into that space, and it’s just sitting empty,” says Galpin.
“I almost get the feeling that they didn’t really believe Corrections Canada would move the parole office and didn’t do anything.”
Brian Karam, president of Bytown Investments, who owns the building, said in a voicemail that there are no plans to make any changes to the building.
Public Works leases the space from Bytown Investments. According to a copy of the lease Galpin obtained through Access to Information requests, the rental agreement began in 2004 and is set to end in 2014.
Until then, Public Works continues to pay rent and other expenses on the building. According to the document, Public Works pays an annual rent of $182,350. Galpin says this is unacceptable.
“We’re now into January. That’s almost five months, at more than $15,000 each month, $80,000 for an empty building. Everyone is talking about cutbacks and trying to save money and they’ve just blown $80,000.”
The total cost of the 10-year lease is more than $2.2 million.
Public Works media relations officer Sebastien Bois confirmed in an email that the lease is valid until Sept. 30, 2014.
He wrote that Correctional Service of Canada is using the first floor of the premises as “general office space for administrative functions,” adding there are currently “no other plans for that space.”
The second floor of the building houses Assisted Human Reproduction Canada, and the third floor is home to Public Prosecution Services of Canada, according to the statement.
Galpin says he has seen no activity on the first floor since Corrections Canada left.
“There are no lights on. There are emergency lights in the back, but I never see any people on the first floor.
It has been completely empty with no activity as far as I can see since August.”
Though Galpin and other local activists met their objective of having the parole office moved away from the school, Galpin says that as a taxpayer he is “astonished” by the current situation.
“They are building office space all over the city, but they’ve got this empty space that they could be using right now. The whole thing has been a fiasco.”
The saga began in 2004, when a Corrections Canada parole office moved into the building at 301 Elgin St., just across the street from Elgin Street Public School, to the ire of local parents, politicians and community members.
The government has no other plans for the space.