The Rural Municipality of Moose Jaw No. 161 (RM of Moose Jaw) has announced a Grand Opening ceremony for their new public works buildings, with refreshment, presentations, and a ribbon-cutting set to take place starting at 2 p.m. on Tuesday, July 11.
"Basically, we relocated our public works buildings, we built two brand new public works buildings outside of the city limits of Moose Jaw," explained Mike Wirges. Wirges has been the Chief Administrative Officer for the RM of Moose Jaw for nearly 10 years.
"We're moving out into the country, just outside Boharm, and that decision was based on looking at the future and the kind of additional space we require."
The RM started the search for land a few years ago and quickly settled on some land already owned in Boharm, rather than paying high prices for land within Moose Jaw city limits, Wirges said. The buildings are still only a short drive away — roughly 9 kilometres west on Caribou Street.
The RM's municipal office will remain at its current location at the Regional Municipal Plaza on Caribou Street West.
"It's an 80' by 20', so about 9,600 square foot building that we've put up, in addition to a smaller, I'd say 4,500 square foot storage building," Wirges said. "It's the first time we've built out there since '86, if I'm not mistaken, so we figured it was time to move into a location that we could expand if necessary."
The yard will store all of the RM's public works equipment. Public Works crews are responsible for graveling and grading of public roads, the installation and maintenance of culverts, road construction, noxious weed control, and mowing throughout the RM.
Wirges estimated the project had taken about nine months from ground-breaking to completion.
