Department of Transportation staff began their long-awaited relocation to a new downtown Yellowknife building on Monday.
Up till now, the department – established in 1989 – has run its operations from three separate buildings in the city. Now, its headquarters will be centralized at the seven-storey 5015 49 Street building.
However, there’s a chance the move will mean a disruption to services over the next two weeks as staff relocate.
“It’ll take a couple of weeks for us to all move into there. In the meantime we’re going to try to continue to provide as normal a service as possible,” Russell Neudorf, deputy minister of transportation, told Moose FM.
“Things might be disrupted a little bit, so we appreciate the public’s patience with that.”
Not everyone is moving immediately. The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Office will remain at 5003 49 Street for the foreseeable future.
“We anticipate by early fall we’ll have all the infrastructure so we can move that into the new building as well,” said Neudorf.
Prior to the opening of the new building, the Department of Transportation’s headquarters had spanned three downtown buildings.
Communications, planning, policy and corporate services were previously housed in the Lahm Ridge Tower, with the highways and regional operations divisions in the Highways Building across Franklin Avenue. The airports division operated from the YK Centre building.
The department’s telephone numbers will also change this summer, in keeping with others across the GNWT. Announcements regarding new numbers will follow.
