New meeting rooms at Calgary Municipal Building will replace former cafeteria

Several projects are set to transform Calgary's Municipal Building, including building new meeting rooms in the former cafeteria space.

Therooms are part of an effort to get more people using the aging building, which needs millions of dollars of repairs.

The new meeting rooms won't be reserved for city staff, saysThomas Hansen, with the city's facility management office.

"We're going to be constructing multi-purpose meeting rooms in the space that was formerly occupied by the cafeteria and these meeting rooms are going to be used obviously by all city staff, but they'll also be open for public access," Hansen says.

"So the public can book these meeting rooms and come down and use them and therefore come and experience the municipal building."

Hansen says construction will start next year and be completed in 2018.

The cost will depend on the bids.

The city is also working on a plan to put retail space along the building's ThirdStreet side,part of a plan to make the area more friendly to people when the new central library opens on the other side of ThirdStreetin late 2018.

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