New $163 million Burnaby RCMP headquarters planned | Daily Hive

Existing Burnaby RCMP headquarters at 6355 Deer Lake Avenue. (Google Maps)

Burnaby RCMP will have a brand new and expanded detachment headquarters well before the end of the decade.

Next week, Burnaby City Council is expected to approve City of Burnaby staff’s recommendation to select a consortium led by Kinetic Construction and Johnston Davidson Architecture to design and build the municipality’s new police headquarters.

Both firms have substantial prior experience with civic and institutional facilities, including fire stations.

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The entire project is expected to cost $162.5 million, with the current contract value to validate the design, perform pre-design site analysis, and undertake advanced pre-construction work coming at a cost of $6.5 million.

In Fall 2023, a validation report from the team on the project will return to City Council, at which point the municipal government will award the full design and construction contract to the consortium.

Earlier this year, City Council selected the option of building the new headquarters at 4038-4244 Norland Avenue — an almost six-acre land assembly on the southeast corner of the intersection of Norland Avenue and Ledger Avenue. This site — currently largely undeveloped and with surface parking uses — is in an area north of Deer Lake, the existing Burnaby City Hall, and the existing Burnaby RCMP headquarters, and west of Highway 1’s Kensington Avenue interchange.

Burnaby RCMP headquarters: existing location (bottom) and new location (top). (Google Maps)

City Council also approved a five-year capital plan through 2027 that sets aside at least $160 million from the community benefit bonus fund for the new police headquarters.

In 2020, a City study showed the existing police headquarters at 6355 Deer Lake Avenue provides inadequate space for the needs of the detachment today and certainly into the future. The 1960s-completed building, originally used as a courthouse, is also aging. Currently, this building is home to 409 staff, including 301 police staff and 108 City staff.

According to a request for proposal document earlier this year, the new modern purpose-built headquarters will have a total building floor area of about 121,000 sq ft, within a structure that is three or four storeys high.

Its components will include administrative areas, operations areas, a cell block and exhibit storage, offices, meeting and interview rooms, a cafeteria, washrooms with lockers and showers, storage, and health and wellness facilities. There would also be about 151,000 sq ft of vehicle parking space in a combination of surface and underground configurations.

Existing Burnaby RCMP headquarters at 6355 Deer Lake Avenue. (Google Maps)

If all goes as planned, construction could begin in September 2024 for a completion in Fall 2027.

The municipal government is also in the process of planning the relocation of Burnaby City Hall to a new and expanded space in Metrotown. The existing City Hall is located immediately adjacent to the existing police headquarters.

Both the existing City Hall and police headquarters form all of the uses of the City’s 18-acre city block. It is unclear what future uses this large site will have after the relocation of both City Hall and the police headquarters.

The City of Burnaby currently has numerous major capital projects in the pipeline.

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