Carling Campus initiative

Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) is collaborating with the Department of National Defence (DND) and Shared Services Canada (SSC) on consolidating a large part of the Department of National Defence's (DND) headquarters function at Nortel's former Carling Campus. This consolidation will achieve more than $900M in net savings for Canadian taxpayers.

Defence personnel are currently distributed in over 40 locations across the National Capital Area, mainly located in downtown, commercial leased spaces. These locations are costly to lease, refit, secure and renew on a recurring basis. The consolidation will see DND moving from over 40 offices to approximately 10 major locations in the NCA, achieving $750 million in net savings in accommodations costs over a 25 year period, plus an additional $160 million for DND in cost avoidance.

These savings will be based on the reduction of higher cost leased accommodation in the Ottawa downtown core and the movement to a crown-owned suburban location. It will also allow PSPC and SSC to provide DND with the safe, healthy, and affordable facilities it needs to efficiently deliver its programs and services in Canada and around the world.

This major consolidation project also represents an exciting milestone for the DND's renewal strategy - aimed at finding efficiencies to be reinvested in operational capabilities and readiness.

Not only will it dramatically reduce the number of locations for National Defence Headquarters, but it will also position DND Defence Team to successfully meet future roles and responsibilities by facilitating the modernization of headquarters operations. The additional $160 million savings for DND in cost avoidance achieved from this consolidation will help bolster renewal efforts aimed at reinvesting in front-line services as opposed to corporate overhead.

As custodian, PSPC is the lead on the project to ensure that the Campus meets DND's long-term office accommodation requirements. SSC will ensure that the DND has reliable, efficient and secure information technology infrastructure, for the best price possible. When completed, 8,500 Defence personnel will occupy the Carling Campus.

Following the 2010 purchase of the Campus, and with the creation of Shared Services Canada in August 2011, PSPC, DND and SSC completed a thorough analysis of DND's IT and occupation requirements and found additional savings from those originally identified. The soundness of the business case to purchase and re-fit the campus was validated by third party professional advisory services firms.

The cost to re-fit the Campus is expected to be approximately $506M over 6 years. This includes pre-planning studies, design and the construction of the necessary base building upgrades, special purpose space, IT, security, and re-fit of the buildings. The total cost of this consolidation is estimated at $792.2M (GST/HST excluded). This includes the purchase price of the Campus ($208.3M), re-fit costs ($506M) and the transition costs ($77.9M).

Before personnel can be consolidated, we need to design and refit the spaces. The design and re-fit work started in early 2014. The consolidation of Defence Team members is expected to be complete within approximately six years. The first phase of migration is currently targeted for fall 2016. PSPC, DND and SSC are committed to remain on scope, on budget and on time through the duration of this project.