Catholic Social Services is enjoying its new and bigger home.
The new building at its former location, 5104 48th Ave., is 26,000 square feet, over twice the size of the old building they occupied there for about 13 years.
“We were just really, really over-full. We had four and five staff sharing offices,” said CEO Karen Murphy on Monday following Friday’s grand-opening.
About 80 staff work on site.
The opening for the three-storey office building coincides with the 50th anniversary of the organization providing services in the Red Deer region.
With a budget of more than $16 million and more than 450 staff, the agency provides residential and outreach supports for children and adults with physical and developmental disabilities, foster care services, family and anger management counselling, and immigration services.
The agency also provides services to people with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder and acquired brain injury.
The office building serves as the hub for CSS operations in west central Alberta.
Murphy said the club for developmentally disabled is now on the main floor and fully accessible with games and craft tables, a full kitchen and its own entrance.
“The club used to be down in the basement and they had to move out four times because of flooding and move back in. It’s nice they’re on the main floor with lots of windows.”
Since there wasn’t an elevator, clients had to use a stairwell lift which occasionally broke down, she said.
“I think the biggest difference is we’ve got lots of meeting space.”
The old building had two small meeting rooms. Now they have two large meeting rooms that can be divided into four, a training room and a board room.
The basement contains a wellness area for staff with gym equipment and the roof has a patio where staff can get fresh air.
A new after-hours entrance is available for counselling and training.
szielinski@www.reddeeradvocate.com