Winnipeg's Public Safety Building closing to the public

Starting on Wednesday, there won't be anything public about Winnipeg's Public Safety Building.

The 50-year-old Princess Street structure will be vacant as of June 22, as the Winnipeg Police Service has completed its move into its new headquarters on Graham Avenue.

Along with city hall, the Public Safety Building is part of an ensemble of modernist buildings built in the 1960s in the Civic Centre neighbourhood. The city plans to demolish the PSB as well as the Civic Centre Parkade, which has been shuttered since 2012 because of structural concerns.

• Public Safety Building to be demolished, no date yet

The parkade land will be sold, while the city is entering into consultations to find the best use for the parcel of land that includes the PSB. An 1875 caveat on the land, which was donated to the city, stipulates it must have some form of public use.

The city chose to abandon the PSB in 2009, when council voted to buy the former Canada Post complex on Graham Avenue and convert it into a new police headquarters. Council was told the project would cost $135 million, even though an internal city report pegged the purchase and renovation at $180 million, or close to the same cost as renovating or expanding the Public Safety Building.

The new police-HQ project wound up costing the city $214 million, not including the cost of disposing of conducting renovations to the 10-storey tower component of the Graham Avenue complex. The police HQ also remains the focus of an RCMP fraud-and-forgery investigation that's now 18 months old.

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The Winnipeg Police Service plans to hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the new HQ on July 5.

Heritage advocates and architect Les Stechesen, meanwhile, have decried the pending demolition of the PSB. Council voted to knock down the building because it would be too expensive to renovate it.

• Winnipeg's Public Safety Building not worth saving: report