The city of Windsor celebrated 126 years and the opening of a brand new City Hall Saturday.
Mayor Drew Dilkens shifted the date of the annual Mayor's Walk to make sure it coincided with the opening of the $30-million structure — which broke ground in June of 2016.
.@drewdilkens about to officially cut the ribbon on a brand new Citty Hall. #cklw pic.twitter.com/8aMMCDr84M
— Gord Bacon (@baconAM800) May 26, 2018
"To be able to celebrate and have the doors open to the public to come in and experience their new city hall, so we wanted to move it forward a week to be able to make sure things were ready at the new city hall and welcome them in the proper way," he says. "I think we've done that today."
The city took a moment to recognize former Mayor and now President and CEO of the WFCU Eddie Francis with a plaque for stirring up the discussion during his final term in office that led to the project.
"Figured out we could do it and we could do it with our current budget — this city hall is entirely paid for — then he left and I came in and we had to pick up the pieces and put them together," says Dilkens. "He played a role in starting this conversation in the community."
Francis tells AM800 News the building exceeded his expectations.
"Obviously this decision was made some time ago but the hard part was actually getting the project executed, so a lot of credit to the existing mayor and existing council, they did a wonderful job, this is a wonderful facility," says Francis."It's the building the public deserves ... the old city hall wasn't very inviting and very outdated."
Dilkens says the biggest change to the building is the layout making it far more accessible to the community.
More than 280 employees began moving into the facility last week.