Klinic set to buy new digs on Sherbrook

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This article was published 03/09/2016 (3350 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Klinic needs to clear just one more hurdle before it is able to purchase the Epic Information Solutions building on Sherbrook Street — but it might be years before it gets to move in.

The 46-year-old Winnipeg community health clinic has been looking for a new location in its central Winnipeg catchment area for almost a decade and believes the 35,000-square-foot Sherbrook Street location is the right one.

Klinic officials are so convinced they’ve found the right location they’re prepared to wait — maybe as long as eight years — before setting up shop there.

That’s because the current tenant, Epic, which was acquired by MTS in 2013, has about two years left on its lease of the building ,which is currently owned by Epic’s founder and former CEO David Reid. After that, MTS has a unilateral option to renew the lease for another five years.

However it turns out, a street-level community support agency servicing the needs of some of the city’s most marginalized people may well become the landlord of one of the city’s wealthiest corporations.

By all accounts it is has been a friendly association so far.

“We have been working with MTS around it,” said Nicole Chammartin, executive director of Klinic. “They are not sure whether they will renew the lease. They have been very gracious and helpful, and we have understood all along that this was one of the things we would have to deal with.”

She said the final condition for the sale to be completed is the rezoning of Epic’s parking lot on the east side of the building on Furby Street. Financial considerations of the purchase are not being disclosed before the deal is finalized.

Klinic will present its zoning case to the community committee meeting Tuesday with the hopes city council will approve it later.

Reid and MTS officials could not be reached for comment Friday, but according to Chammartin and Klinic’s board chairwoman Jan Schubert, there is strong expectation the deal will get finalized.

“It is a very important project for Klinic,” Schubert said. “It has been a long time coming.”

Klinic has operated out of its Portage Avenue location since 1990 and its more famous Broadway “mansion” since 1972.

There is a specific geographic mandate for the health services it provides, and Klinic had to find a place that would be easily accessible to its client base, many of whom might arrive on foot or on a bus.

That mandate comes from the organization itself but also from its major funders, Manitoba Health and the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, which have both approved the acquisition of the building.

“In terms of the population that we serve, it is highly accessible,” Chammartin said. “It’s on a straight bus route between Misericordia (Health Centre) and Health Sciences Centre, which are collateral services we would use a lot.”

The rezoning of the parking lot is an unusual scenario in that it has been used as a parking lot for many years. Klinic officials discovered it was never zoned for that use.

Chammartin said Klinic’s application has the support of the West Broadway Community Organization.

Over the years, Klinic has taken on the delivery of a number of new services and now has about 200 people working at its two locations (not all of them full time) and an equal number of volunteers.

“Because we are a well-respected agency in the community, both the province and the WRHA asked us to take on additional initiatives over the years,” Schubert said. “So the space to provide those services has been getting tighter and tighter.”

In addition to its community health services staffed by doctors, nurse practitioners and nurses, Klinic operates most of the province’s crisis lines — from rape crisis services, Teen Talk, the critical incident reporting and support line, the seniors abuse support line and the Manitoba suicide line.

The additional services means its operating budget has doubled since 2005 to $10.8 million in the current year.

The space at the new location will be more than 50 per cent greater than its main operations at 870 Portage Ave. (The Broadway building is primarily used for counselling services).

That Klinic owns both its locations has made financing the move possible.

Chammartin said Klinic will still need to take out a mortgage but will not defer any operating funds from service delivery to buy the building.

The Portage Avenue location will not be put up for sale until the Sherbrook deal is closed, and Chammartin hopes when the time comes, that building will find a buyer.

If Klinic decides to sell the Broadway location — which has historic building designation — she said it will choose the buyer carefully.

“The Broadway location is really important and special to the community,” she said.

“We are going to be really careful about what happens with it. If we sell it, it will be to someone who will use it in a similar way to serve the community.”

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca